ORAC
21st Aug 2002, 14:21
They don't make them like that any more.
The Times - August 21, 2002:
PROVING that old age is no barrier to adventure and outright lunacy, the octogenarian Dizzy Seales and his slightly younger wooden leg set a new world record for wingwalking yesterday.
Mr Seales, aged 88, smashed the record of an 87-year-old South African woman to become the oldest person in the history of the preposterous to stand on the wing of a flying aircraft.
The milestone, which seems tailor-made for The Guinness Book of Records, was achieved in the skies above Goodwood, West Sussex. Ten minutes would have been enough on the wing of the preserved wartime Boeing Stearman, but Mr Seales enjoyed it so much that he insisted on being airborne for an hour and 15 minutes “I plan to come back every year until I am 100,” he said once back on terra firma. “But I am very laid-back about the record. It’s just another cross in my diary.”.............
Mr Seales learnt his wingwalking at a harder school. As an air gunner during the Second World War, he left the gun turret of his crippled Boulton-Paul Defiant nightfighter and walked across the wing in mid-flight to rescue his trapped pilot. The episode earned him his nickname.
Later in the war he helped to rescue about 100 British and American airmen from the English Channel when he joined the RAF air-sea rescue squadron.
Mr Seales was a thrill-seeker even before the war. He was famous in the 1930s as a motorcycle sidecar racer, one of those helmeted loons who hung out sideways at breakneck speed to help his co-driver in cornering. He was, with his co-driver, British sidecar champion every year from 1935 until the outbreak of war.
The wooden leg is a different matter: he lost a leg 15 years ago in an accident involving nothing more threatening than a London bus.
Mr Seales has accomplished a number of wingwalking feats in recent years with the Utterly Butterlys, Europe’s only professional wingwalking team. He was watched yesterday by his goddaughter, Amber, and a group of friends. “He’s incredible. With the strength he’s got, Dizzy could have stayed up there all day,” his friend Ken Rimell said.
Given the poor service and lack of room currently offered by “budget” airlines, wingwalking could well take off with the travelling masses.
The Times - August 21, 2002:
PROVING that old age is no barrier to adventure and outright lunacy, the octogenarian Dizzy Seales and his slightly younger wooden leg set a new world record for wingwalking yesterday.
Mr Seales, aged 88, smashed the record of an 87-year-old South African woman to become the oldest person in the history of the preposterous to stand on the wing of a flying aircraft.
The milestone, which seems tailor-made for The Guinness Book of Records, was achieved in the skies above Goodwood, West Sussex. Ten minutes would have been enough on the wing of the preserved wartime Boeing Stearman, but Mr Seales enjoyed it so much that he insisted on being airborne for an hour and 15 minutes “I plan to come back every year until I am 100,” he said once back on terra firma. “But I am very laid-back about the record. It’s just another cross in my diary.”.............
Mr Seales learnt his wingwalking at a harder school. As an air gunner during the Second World War, he left the gun turret of his crippled Boulton-Paul Defiant nightfighter and walked across the wing in mid-flight to rescue his trapped pilot. The episode earned him his nickname.
Later in the war he helped to rescue about 100 British and American airmen from the English Channel when he joined the RAF air-sea rescue squadron.
Mr Seales was a thrill-seeker even before the war. He was famous in the 1930s as a motorcycle sidecar racer, one of those helmeted loons who hung out sideways at breakneck speed to help his co-driver in cornering. He was, with his co-driver, British sidecar champion every year from 1935 until the outbreak of war.
The wooden leg is a different matter: he lost a leg 15 years ago in an accident involving nothing more threatening than a London bus.
Mr Seales has accomplished a number of wingwalking feats in recent years with the Utterly Butterlys, Europe’s only professional wingwalking team. He was watched yesterday by his goddaughter, Amber, and a group of friends. “He’s incredible. With the strength he’s got, Dizzy could have stayed up there all day,” his friend Ken Rimell said.
Given the poor service and lack of room currently offered by “budget” airlines, wingwalking could well take off with the travelling masses.