Wing Walking - The Beginning of Air Walkers

The Beginning of Air Walkers

The earliest known instance of a wing-walking on a powered aircraft was an experimental flight in England involving a biplane built by Colonel Samuel Franklin Cody in 1911. At Laffan's Plain Cody wished to demonstrate how his Flying Cathedral biplanes had the greastest lateral stability even with a passenger 10 feet 6 inches away from the aircraft's center of gravity. The first wing walker to perform daring stunts was-26-year old Ormer Locklear. Legend has it that he first climbed out onto the lower wings during his pilot training in the Army Air Service during World War I. Undaunted, Ormer just climbed out of the cockpit onto the wings in flight whenever there was a mechanical issue and fixed the problem.

On November 8, 1918, Locklear wowed the crowd at Barron Field, Texas, with his daredevil wing-walking stunts. Wing walking was seen as an extreme form of barnstorming, and wing walkers would constantly take up the challenge of outdoing one another. They themselves admitted (or rather proclaimed proudly) that the point of their trade was to make money on the audience's prospect of possibly watching someone die.

After this first demonstration, wing walkers continued to play an important part in the Army Air Corps (now the U.S. Air Force) and Navy in the advancement of aviation. They were instrumental in the first air-to-air refuelling, as well as long-distance flight records. In 1921, Wesley May strapped a fuel tank on his back and performed a plane-to-plane transfer. Additional tests were undertaken, and a hose with aid of a wing walker was the next exploration into aerial refuelling.

Ormer Locklear led the charge with his plane-to-plane transfer, and many followed. His female equivalent, the first woman to switch planes in the air, was Ethal Dare.

Some of the many aerialists to become popular were Tiny Broberick, Gladys Ingles, Eddie Angel, Virginia Angel, Mayme Carson, Clyde Pangborn, Lillian Boyer, Jack Shack, Al Wilson, Fronty Nichols, Spider Matlock, Gladys Roy, Ivan Unger, Jessie Woods, Bonnie Rowe, Charles Lindbergh, and Mabel Cody (niece of Buffalo Bill Cody).

Eight wing walkers died in a relatively short period during the infancy of wing walking and even the great Ormer Locklear himself perished in 1920 while performing a stunt for a film.

Variations on wing walking became common, with such stunts as doing handstands, hanging by one's teeth, and transferring from one plane to another. A 1931 article on wingwalking on inverted aircraft touted the practical aspect of performing inflight landing-gear inspection or maintenance. Eventually wing walkers began making transfers between a ground vehicle, such as a car, a boat, or a train, to the plane. Other variations included free-falls ending with a last-minute parachute opening; Charles Lindbergh, whose career in flight began with wing walking, was well-known for stunts involving parachutes. Virginia Angel was instrumental in teaching Lindbergh how to wingwalk, for this he was required to do in exchange for flying lessons. "He was a boy that wanted to fly," Virginia remembered, "and he was doing everything he could. Work and money were scarce and any little job that he could do—mechanic, or in any capacity whatsoever that would get him some flying time. The boys would trade work for teaching and he used to do that quite a lot. Jim (Angel) had him walk his wings and naturally I had to teach him. Never complained. It was on the West Coast, mostly in Los Angeles.” The first African-American woman granted an international pilot license, Bessie Coleman, also engaged in stunts using parachutes. Another successful woman in this profession was Lillian Boyer, who performed hundreds of wing-walking exhibitions, automobile-to-plane changes, and parachute jumps.