Presentation by Breitling Wingwalkers on behalf of the VRT 17 April Orsett, Essex

Location: Orsett Hall Hotel, Prince Charles Avenue, Orsett, Essex, RM16 3HS
Date: 17 April 2013 19:00 to 22:00

We at the Vulcan Restoration Trust are delighted to announce that the latest in our series of successful evening events at the Orsett Hall Hotel is to be a presentation by the Breitling Wingwalkers team on 17 April.

The team are currently (early March) displaying in Australia having also been to China in late 2012, both of which have been great logistical tests for the small Aerosuperbatics-operated team from their base in the Cotswolds.
Aerosuperbatics have been specialists in display flying for over 27 ye…ars and operate one of the best known and loved civilian air display acts in Europe. Previously sponsored by the likes of Utterly Butterly, Crunchie and Guinot, the team are now titled The Breitling Wingwalkers and are busier than ever. The wing walking team has performed at over 2500 different events, and are seen live by over 6 million spectators each year in the UK alone. The girls perform a sequence of acrobatic manoeuvres and handstands strapped to the top wings of the team’s Boeing Stearman biplanes whilst the aircraft are flown through a well rehearsed energetic routine of aerobatics and close formation flypasts. These manoeuvres include loops, rolls, stall turns and even inverted flight. During all of this, the wing walkers experience speeds of up to 150 mph and ‘G’ forces of up to 4G.
Currently sponsored by timepiece manufacturers Breitling the team can offer as many as four orange painted bi-planes to display organisers, although generally they are split into two pairs who will perform at different locations around the UK, Europe and beyond, having more recently spread their wings as far as China and will be displaying in Australia in March of this year. The team draws on their teams of six pilots and six wing-walking girls to fulfil their busy display schedule and to represent them we are pleased to have lead pilot Dave Barrell visiting to share his experiences, and we are hopeful that one of the girls can confirm upon their return from Australia.

As a child growing up near Duxford airfield Dave saw many airshows and warbird aircraft were a common sight in the skies during the summer months. It was the combination of watching vintage aircraft flying overhead and a back seat ride in a Harvard that first gave him the incentive to learn to fly and he eventually gained his Pilot’s Licence at Cambridge Aeroclub in 1995, initially cutting his teeth flying a parachute jump aircraft in East Anglia. It was at Swanton Morley airfield in Norfolk that Dave came across the Stearman on which he quickly built his ‘tail dragger’ hours and soon gained a Display Authorisation. He wanted to fly wing walking aircraft after seeing the Aerosuperbatics Team perform many years ago, and, after answering an advertisement, was selected for the team at the beginning of 2007. Dave soon became a ‘formation lead’ pilot with the team.

Tickets will be available from the Trust’s website at http://www.avrovulcan.com soon.
Proceeds will go towards the continued work on XL426 at Southend

The history of ‘Wing walking’ began shortly after the First World War, at the end of which there were hundreds of surplus aircraft that could be snapped up cheaply by young daredevils who had caught the flying bug. Airshows were staged at which members of the public could take joyrides for a few shillings or dollars, and there were aerobatic displays of loops and rolls and flying inverted. Naturally, the more outrageous and dangerous the stunt, the more the crowd enjoyed it, so if a young pilot wanted to make a living out of flying he had to come up with something new that pushed the edges of the envelope a little further. In 1918 an American flier called Ormer Locklear came up with a stunt that was guaranteed to wow the crowds; he would climb out of the aeroplane and walk along the wing and even climb from one aeroplane onto another. Apparently Locklear first clambered out of the cockpit to fix a technical problem while training during the war. Pretty soon every ‘flying circus’ had a wing walking act and Locklear was soon joined by numerous other daredevils including the wonderfully named Ethal Dare, the world’s first female wing walker who like Locklear would walk from plane to plane. Not surprisingly there were a few mishaps. These wing walk pioneers were operating without a safety net, no parachutes, and no safety wires tethering them to the aircraft. In 1938 the authorities in America decided that parachutes had to be worn, though by that time war was on its way and the shows came to an end. A few wing walkers operated in America in the 1970s but it wasn’t until frustrated barnstormer Vic Norman founded the Aerosuperbatics wing walking team in the early 1980s that the sight of dare devils hand-standing and flying upside down on the wing was seen in Europe