"'Danger' in Airshows"

[howardwhite 6]

A publication called "Airshow Pro 2009" has a cover story entitled "A Historical Review of 'Danger' in Airshows." The cover shows Red Grant in his wingsuit, and there's another wingsuit picture.
The story talks about 'danger' as an airshow attraction, including low-pull contests, multiple cutaways and batwing jumps.
"Until it halted in the late 1950s and early 1960s, this inclusion of the 'danger image' has been going on for all of airshow history," the story says, adding parenthetically "we.. are very glad that the era is over."
The story quotes one source as describing "...parachute races to the ground where the winner furled as low as a hundred feet. The jumpers would try to coordinate the race and fix it, but one guy would cheat on the others to win the money."
It described Charlie Hillard, a participant in the first baton pass, as one who bridged the gap between the danger era and modern airshows (and misspelled his name, as many do.) It also said Eddie Green, an Air Show Hall of Fame member, was "on the first team (with Doug Dailey) to do the baton pass east of the Mississippi River." (News to me.)
It's good reading, if you see a copy lying around somewhere.

HW

[poppenhager 1]

Howard,I receive Airshow Mag through the local airport and read the BATMAN article.There were some BS and incorrect dates in it for sure.I knew Red Grant and jumped with him at the 1958 Miami air races.He really could fly his wings quite well.

I know Steve and Charlie made the first baton pass in the USA and I made the first in Floida 3/21/59 with Dick Shuford D-100 and first Double pass on 6/8/59 with Dick Shuford and Bill Elfers D-28.All from 7000'.

There may have been some one else who beat us at it,who knows...........POP

[lodestar 0]

Correct me if i'm wrong but was there a sequence in the movie "gypsy moths" of wing flying? I'll have to dig my copy out and watch to see...i think there was.
Hey Poppenhager, just wanted to say hello, you may remember me from the loft at zhills from 69 through 75 or so and I was flying the light aircraft on jump runs, 6472A and the 196......
Tuna

[howardwhite 6]

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Correct me if i'm wrong but was there a sequence in the movie "gypsy moths" of wing flying?

A sequence? Wing flying ("the cape!!") was pretty much the whole plot of the skydiving part of the movie.
"Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers..." by Michael Abrams devotes a full chapter to Garth Taggart, who did the batwing jumps for the movie.
The blurb for the book quotes him as saying "It turned out that almost everyone from the thirties and forties had died.That just made me want to do it more."

HW

[Colson 0]

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Wing flying ("the cape!!")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N--qHBEOEY8