Wing walking

Just for a change, I thought I would write a blog post about something I have done, rather than photographs I have taken. The prompt for this was a move to Adobe CC a couple of months ago. Ever since I’ve been trying to get to grips with Lightroom. With the terrible weather we’ve been experiencing recently, I haven’t taken any new images, but have been tackling my scanning backlog instead. It turns out Lightroom is excellent at correcting images quickly and I can work through a batch in a couple of hours. True, that doesn’t include removing dust and scratches, but at least they look better and I can work on a handful of favourites later. I have completely finished my unmounted slides, prints without negatives and the large binder of negatives should be done by Christmas. That only leaves the mounted slides. I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel.

So yesterday I was editing some from the summer of 2000 and I thought it would be nice to share them. I was working full time back then, looking after a team of project managers. I recall going into one gentleman’s office and as happened quite often, we got talking. Having recently done a bit of fire walking and abseiling for charity, I said what I really wanted to do was wing walking. At the time I had no idea, but he was involved with the Tiger Moth club at Headcorn. His father ran the museum there. A few days later he popped in to see me and said he had asked the owner of the world’s oldest flying Tiger Moth and it could be arranged if I was prepared to sign a disclaimer and pay for the fuel. Naturally, I agreed and a few weeks later my husband drove me to the airfield. It was late afternoon and they were getting the Tiger Moth ready. I recall the struggle to get up on the wing, but once on board I was strapped in and after that things moved very quickly.

I remember bumping down the grass strip, gradually getting up speed and wondering if we were ever going to take off. Suddenly the bumping stopped and we were lifting away from the people gathered below. Soon they looked like ants on the ground. The pilot had briefed me beforehand. In case I wasn’t comfortable, he would waggle the wings and look to me for a thumbs up or down. I was enjoying myself so much that I nearly forgot my signal. What followed was undoubtedly the best thing I have ever experienced. I never felt the need to hold on to the frame and instead held my arms out where they were battered by the wind. Eventually, we headed back to the aerodrome, but the pilot had sharp eyes and had spotted a hot air balloon in the distance. With the sun setting, we circled the balloon, with me waving like a thing possessed. My husband took the photographs shown here with a cheap camera and even cheaper film.

Built at Stag Lane, Edgware in 1933, G-ACDC was one of the first batch of ten DH82a Tiger Moths built by De Havilland. She spent her entire pre-war life engaged in training pilots at the De Havilland School of Flying at Hatfield. The first live wing walk was carried out on 4th March 1962 on a different aircraft, but the rig was later passed to ACDC. The Tiger Club web site now has a paragraph saying the authorities have now banned this activity. I was very fortunate indeed.