Wingwalking
With Wingwalking ( German wing walk ) is a stunt demonstration on airplane wing- designated.
history
One of the first wingwalking demonstrations took place on January 14, 1911 during a sightseeing flight in England, during which the stepsons of the American pilot Samuel Franklin Cody stood on the lower wings of his biplane .
The American Air Force pilot Ormer Locklear had climbed several times onto the lower wing of a Curtiss JN-4 biplane at Barron Field , Texas, as a student pilot around 1918 in order to solve technical problems. Due to the enthusiastic reactions of the audience, who had never seen such risky shows, Ormer Locklear and other pilots who had seen his dangerous excursions developed further stunts from it.
Two factors favored the development of this eccentric acrobatics. After the First World War, numerous former US Air Force pilots tried to earn a living at air shows . On the other hand, there was an oversupply of Curtiss JN-4 biplanes after the war, which had been used for pilot training. There were so many of these planes that they could be bought for just $ 200.
The flying showmen called Barnstormers offered acrobatics that became more and more spectacular and was no longer limited to wing walking alone. So was u. a. the transition from a moving car to an airplane or jumping from airplane to airplane was demonstrated. There were so many fatalities in these stunts that the American civil aviation authority was finally compelled in 1936 to ban wingwalking below 1500 ft . Since the wingwalkers were no longer recognizable above this height, the interest in this acrobatics died.
Suitable aircraft
In principle, relatively slow-flying aircraft with a fixed wing are suitable. These are often double-deckers. An aircraft that is still used in stunts today is the Boeing Stearman .
Germany
The only German representative of this aerial acrobatics is Peggy Walentin (formerly Krainz) from Sasbachwalden .
literature
- Caidin, Martin - Barnstorming , Bantam Books, New York 1991
- Cleveland, Carl M. - Upside - Down, Pangborn: King of Barnstormers , Aviation Book Company, Glendale, Cal 1978
- Cooper, Ann L. - On the Wing: Jessie Woods and the Flying Aces Air Circus , Black Hawk Publishing Co., Mt. Freedom, NJ 1993
- Corn, Joseph J. - The Winged Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation, 100-1950 , Oxford University Press, New York 1983
- Ronnie, Art. - Locklear: The Man Who Walked On Wings , AS Barnes and Company, South Brunswick, UK 1973
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Rolf Stünkel: Fearless artists of the air: Wing Walker. In airplane Classic. No. 7/2020, p. 29
- ↑ Jürgen Schelling: Peggy Krainz from Sasbachwalden is Germany's only wingwalker . badische-zeitung.de, Panorama, January 26, 2013 (February 8, 2013)