I needed and wanted to do something to capture the imagination. A sponsored walk, unless it was from John O Groats to Lands’ End in nothing but a purple G string, was never going to interest anyone. It had to be something different, something original, something most people had never done before.
It all really took off after the First World War. With thousands of aircraft lying idle and lots of highly trained pilots looking for work, it was a simple transition to pilots performing acrobatic displays at flying circus shows.
Ormer Locklear is considered the father of modern wing walking. Ormer got into wing walking because he had a great deal of experience making aircraft repairs while they were in flight.
Unfortunately, Ormer would be killed while filming an ariel stunt for a movie, which was all caught on camera.
Today, wing walking is highly regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority. No, none of those slightly unsafe walking across wings, or jumping from plane to plane. Participants are secured using purpose-designed harness systems attached to certified wing-walking rigs.
Boo!
‘Nuts’, ‘Crazy’, ‘Brave’ are some of the comments I have received regarding the wing walk I am about to do. The best one was “Has a black man ever done that before?”
“You could do a sponsored walk” A dear friend said to me about raising funds for my charity.
“Erm no, Old people do sponsored walks. I am not doing that!”
It all came about a couple of days later when I was thinking what I could do. One thing I would have been up for, I had heard about a few years previously. A company up north used to fire punters out of a trebuchet. For those not in the know, a trebuchet is a type of catapult, of French origin, that was used to fire heavy projectiles long distances. It has a short arm with a counterweight attached to it and a long arm that carried the projectile. Using the principle of levers, it had a devastating effect on castles of old that were under siege.
So, at this water park in Somerset, a punter would climb into the bucket and get catapulted a hundred feet into a net. This lasted until November 2002 when the weight of an unfortunate student was miscalculated, and he tragically landed short of the target area.
Ok, so not that one.
Sky diving – lots of training and expense involved there. Tandem parachute jump – done that a few years ago. Sponsored run – been doing that for years. Then I saw an TV segment about some dear 97-year-old who did a wing walk. I am thinking that my girl only went out for a pint of milk and some bread, got confused and ended up at the aerodrome. The seed was planted.
I texted my friend back a few days later and said that I am going to do a walk, a wing walk. She heard the walk part but not the wing. When I explained what it actually was, she went quiet before also declaring me mad.
Then another friend asked me if I was afraid. Before I even replied he added,
“Prostate cancer, no comparison really.”
I have done a few awareness talks, for a particular company and I reached out to one of the directors that always warmly greeted me when I saw him. I emailed him and asked if he would consider sponsoring the cost of the wing walk. He said it’s not something that they would normally do but intrigued by the idea he said he would get back to me. A few days later he got back to me and said they would do it.
Absolutely fantastic! Thank you.
Once booked, I created the first video with funnyman, Joel for GoFundMe and the rest is history.
In the space of twenty-four days the GFM has raised £1800 and the total is now over £2000.
I am so humbled and grateful. Thank you all.
The company I will be flying with is called ‘The Wing Walk Company’ and apparently is one of only two companies in the world (both in the UK) to offer wing walks to the general public. They attract customers from all over the world, have had no fatalities or serious mishaps. I’m in good hands here.
There are two types of wing walk: the basic and the advanced/acrobatic. The CAA who looks after wing walking, have stipulated that everyone has to take the basic walk before they can do the advanced. The basic is where the customer goes up in the plane and they go up and down like a rollercoaster and does tight banks left and right. On the advanced walk you get to do two loop the loops and two of the very impressive barrel rolls.
There are a few medical conditions that may exclude you from wing walking. Epilepsy, fits, severe head injury, recurrent blackouts, fainting fits or giddiness, disease of the brain or nervous system, high blood pressure, heart or lung disease, recurrent weakness or dislocation of any limb, diabetes, mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction. Well that pretty much excludes me – ish. So, not to be completely reckless I did consult my doctor about doing a wing walk as I do have that tiny problem of high blood pressure.
Now if you take a trip to helpful ChatGPT it all but fires up a skull and cross bones image followed by a couple of sentences to hammer it home. My wing company just requires a signature to confirm that you are fit and the other company says if your high blood pressure is managed then it’s OK.
I didn’t even try to get the long explanation past the doctor’s receptionist and just said I was going on a flight and had a question about my blood pressure, and I just needed a phone call. They instead decided to call me in. As I sat down the conversation went as follows,
“Hiya, what can I do for you today?”
“Hi, I am doing a wing walk, and they mention that having high blood pressure might be a problem.”
She nodded, one of those doctor type nods.
“So, what do you want from me?” (It sounds worse in print then she said it.)
“Well, they say it could be a problem, but I think they are talking about people who are not on medication as opposed to people who are. I just wanted to know if it would be alright for me to do”
“Well, I cannot say you are OK to fly, and I cannot say you cannot fly”
We looked at each other for a second. This was a chocolate stethoscope moment. I felt like grabbing a sharpie and putting my name on all of the certificates on the wall.
That was the end of that then. Chat can go and do one.
Back to the walk. I need to turn up two hours before my flight time, get weighed, sign the consent form, watch the health and safety video, meet the pilot and get strapped in. Then away we go for a ten-minute aerial sandblasting.
This is where it gets interesting.
Due to the great British weather walks are only available from the months of March to October. Rain and heavy winds are a no go. They get detailed and accurate weather reports the day before so you need to call the morning before your walk to get confirmation that the next day’s walks will be going ahead. If they cannot fly one day, the walk will roll over to the next day and so on. As you can imagine with a heavy wind or rain, a slip backwards would at best inconvenience the poor pilot and might not aid a safe landing. A slip or heavy gust of wind forwards is somewhat more troublesome.
Smoothie comes to mind 😊
Walkers must be under 14 stone fully clothed. I am currently 13 stone 6 pounds. That means for the next 15 days I cannot even look at any nice-looking food. No ice cream, cake, chocolate. All banned.
Yeah, loving this part.
I cannot say, to all the people who have donated, that the reason the walk didn’t happen was because porky Ellis couldn’t keep his snout off the cake trolley.
Counting down the days.
I Am The One In Three 