Pay attention to what you're doing

When the pilots first started flying the Baby Breitlings they were distracted by the model wing walker moving around. It may sound odd, but when you fly model planes it's unusual for anything to move on the plane without you, the pilot, controlling it. After a few flights you get used to it though and can concentrate on presenting the plane to the crowd.

 Sharon on the other hand found it odd to be holding a transmitter but not to be flying the plane.  She also flies models and on the first few flights she found she was instinctively watching the plane and trying to fly that rather than operate the wingwalkers.

The wingwalkers are operated using the same transmitter you would use to fly a plane.  The sticks and switches move the arms, legs and head and a dial controls the rig rotation.  Whilst it's easy to actually operate the controls, it is tricky to remember which stick controls which movement.  Each arm and leg moves independently, the arms move up and down together and the head also moves. 

The most important time to get everything right is when you operate the rig.  The wingwalkers' legs and arms need to be in the right position when you roate the rig otherwise they get caught in the rigging wires and snap them.

The engines in the 30% Stearmans

The engine is a very important tool for us during the display. Because we are constantly flying lower and slower, so the crowd can get a better view of the planes and wingwalkers, there is little room for error if the engine should stop.

When we first flew the Baby Breitling Stearmans they were fitted with the great sounding Moki 250 radial engines. These engines give a lot of power from quite low throttle settings and have a fantastic sound. Even Sharon who isn't really into engines loved the sound of them.  Unfortunately though, whilst using these engines we had a number of engine cuts which led to a few interesting landings.

Several types of fuel mixes and types were tried before we gave in and fitted Desert Aircraft 150 engines. Since the fitment of these we haven't missed a display or even had any uncomfortable moments with them. The DAs don't sound or look as good but they keep going, allowing us to concentrate on flying a good display.

Merry Christmas from the Baby Breitling Wingwalking Team

The rig on the Baby Wingwalker Stearmans

The rig that supports the wingwalkers is quite a complex piece of engineering and has very accurate detail.

The main vertical tube is made from stainless steel tube and is custom made because nothing suitable could be found.  It was made from 20mm tube and flattened it into an aerofoil section.  Aluminium blocks were machined down to make the anchor points for the pivot. The seat is made from 5mm stainless steel round tube which is silver soldered together.



The cushioning on the full size rig is made from plumber's foam tube.  On the models it is made from the foam from hair curlers.  Orange electrical insulation tape (found by chance on the internet) simulates the orange gaffer tape on the full size rig.

The aluminium pulley wheel was machined.  The cables used to rotate the rig go over the pulley wheel to a sail winch servo with a 2:1 ratio.

The 5 point adjustable harness holds the wingwalkers to the rig.  It is an exact copy of the full size one because it is the most effective way of holding the wingwalker (human or model) securely. There are 9 buckles on each harness and each is hand made.  So too is the clasp that holds the harness together.

The rig is turned using a Supertech winch servo. It was important to have the smallest possible servo because it is visible.

It takes a couple of minutes to put the rig onto the aircraft frame.  3 bolts hold it to the wing and 4 rigging wires stop it moving in all directions.

Theres is a battery in the centre section of aricraft wing that powers both the rig and wingwalker.


The receiver for both the rig and the wingwalker is in the wingwalker's body.  2 cables run up inside the rig to take power to the rig and wingwalker. 

After checking the battery usage we have found that the rig/wingwalker batter uses as much power during a flight as the one that powers the rest of the plane.  There is a high load put on the servos as the rig moves and the wingwalkers move their arms and legs.

Landing the 30% scale Baby Wingwalker Stearmans

At the end of the flight you have to be on your toes with the Stearmans.  This is because the model wingwalkers are are full of radio gear and weigh more of a proportion of the overall weight of the aircraft than the slender full size wingwalkers!

Because of this you need to be landing into wind or as near to into wind as you can get. There are two ways to land the aircraft.  

One is to settle into a gentle three point landing when there is little or no wind to speak of. This type of landing looks really good on grass strips and you can afford to be a bit out of wind.  The wheels slip more than they do on tarmac and you are much less likely to ground loop. 

The second way is to fly them in faster and land only on the main wheels and use crossed rudder and ailerons to correct any direction changes as you slow down. This is the type of landing that Steve favours in stronger crosswinds especially when flying from tarmac.

Construction information about the Baby Wingwalkers

However great the planes look, the model wingwalkers always steal the show.  We are often asked where people can buy them and the answer is "you can't" because they have been individually hand made.

The arms and legs are carved from balsa.  Richard tried making moulds but found they were too heavy if they were moulded.  The bodies are made from a two-piece fibreglass mould, using lightweight cloth,  The bodies are slightly larger than the real wingwalkers because there has to be room for the 2.4 GHz receiver inside which powers 5 mini servos that move the arms, legs and heads.



Each head is individual and based on one of the real wingwalkers from the team, currently we have Sarah and Danielle.  The heads are carved from plastic wood, a two-piece silicone mould is made and filled with fibreglass.  Richard tried a slush mould head but it was too brittle and he couldn't get a consistent thickness.  After all the trials he now has a box full of heads!

 Probably the most time consuming job is stitching the hair into place.  Richard made thousands of 1mm holes in the heads and each hole had 6 strands of hair hooked through. It took 3 long days per head, working 15 hour days.  Danielle's hair took slightly longer because 3 colours were used to match her hair colour.  The hair on the models is slightly longer than the real wingwalkers' hair because it's real hair so it is proportionally thicker and so not as supple.  When it's longer it holds its shape better because of the extra weight.

The costumes are also hand made, using pictures of the real ones to work from.  Because the fabric pieces were so small the patterns were turned into computer drawings and then laser cut to get them as accurate as possible.  Then they were sewed on a standard sewing machine. Lycra is not easy to work with at the best of times because it stretches, but with such small pieces it was very difficult and there was some unpicking and starting again.

The boots and hands are made in the same way as the head, carved and then a silicone mould made. The boots aren't identical to the full size ones because they have to be smaller so they can be taken off to put the clothes on.  Both the boots and hands are slush moulded with expandable foam put in to make them rigid.  The boots and legs need to be kept as light as possible to reduce the load on the arms and legs when they are lifted.  They are attached to the arms and legs with a dowel.


Finally, each model has a watch which is a commercially available 1/4 scale one that has been repainted orange.

Photos copyright of Chris Bowler.

Modifications from the Balsa USA Stearman kit

The Stearmans are built from Balsa USA kits but have had some modifications to make them lighter and more detailed.

Holes have been laser cut in the fuselage formers, the tailplane, fin and wing wherever possible.  This reduces the weight which is especially important in these models because the rig and wingwalker add quite a lot of weight. 

To get the best performance we need to keep the weight as low as we can, whilst not compromising the strength of the structure.

The tailplane was made removable to make the planes easier to transport.  Both planes are transported in one van so they take up less space with the tailplanes off. Carbon fibre tubes are used to join the tailplane.  Elevator servos are in each half of tailplane

The Breitling team use Super Stearmans which have more flying wires than the Stearman so extra mounting points were fitted to attach the additional flying wires.  Hard mounting points also had to be added to attach the wingwalker's rig.

The spar size in the wing was reduced by half and webbing used to make the wing as light and strong as possible. The square aluminium tubes in the kit were replaced with round ones and are not glued in.  That way they are easy to remove so make transportation easier.

To match the full size planes that the models are based on top ailerons have been fitted and the bottom ailerons reduced slightly.  There are several configurations of top ailerons across all 4 planes that are either finished or in construction.  Some top ailerons are nearly the same size as the bottome ones and others are smaller. These reflect the full size configurations.

The nose has been shortened so the prop hub is in the correct line. A completely new cowl was made and starts from the cabane struts. On the full size the cowling was a modified Beech.  New wheel spats were made to the correct shape and a new spinner was made.  The spinner on the Super Stearman is a Harvard.