Congratulations Ashley!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
(06-19) 20:36 PDT NOVATO -- Some have greatness thrust upon them, and others achieve greatness through sheer determination, physical endurance and the ability to dodge sea gulls.
Ashley Battles falls into the latter category. The 27-year-old Tulsa, Okla., resident set a world record 1,000 feet above San Francisco Saturday for wing walking, the art of standing on the wing of an airplane while it soars through the firmament.
"Just knowing I am now the world's greatest wing-walker, it was so overwhelming I started crying," said Battles after disembarking from the World War II-era biplane at Gnoss Field Airport, in Novato. "But I'll tell you, every part of my body aches. Even my eyes are swollen."
Battles stood, walked, stretched and danced to Christian music on her iPod from noon to 4 p.m. on the 33-foot wingspan of a Super 450 Boeing Stearman, shattering the previous wing-walking record of 3 hours, 23 minutes set by a Frenchman in 1990.
The vivacious daredevil said she could have stayed up there for five hours, but was getting cold and worried about the plane running out of fuel. So, after enduring four hours of hurricane-force winds, frigid temperatures and great flocks of birds, Battles signaled pilot Robert Ragozzinoof Sausalito to land the plane.
"When we landed, you could tell she was really discombobulated," said Ragozzino, whose day job is a jet pilot. "She looked like a happy camper when she was up there, but a very battered woman emerged from behind the goggles."
Gaining recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records has been a longtime dream for the photogenic Battles. One of the world's few professional wing-walkers, she has been entertaining crowds at air shows with her airborne acrobatics for seven years, often in sparkly red, white and blue jumpsuits. But most of those outings are only 15 minutes and they're held in the summer in the Midwest, a significantly calmer environment than the Bay Area with its shifting winds, cold air, varied terrain and, worst of all, swooping sea gulls.
"One bird is all it takes to kill me," she said. "The force would just crush everything in my body. I get covered with millions of bugs, but I hold my breath every time I see a bird."
Battles left the patriotic jumpsuit at home Saturday, instead opting for three layers of thermal underwear, a full-body leather motorcycle suit, helmet, face mask and harness to attach her to the plane.
Still, she was "almost unbearably" cold. To distract herself, she listened to her iPod tunes and focused on the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and a kaleidoscope of San Francisco Bay landmarks swirling below the circling plane.
"Oh my gosh, it was amazing," she said. "At one point I had Christian music on, the sun was beating down - it was so beautiful I couldn't believe it."
Wing-walking originated in the 1920s with out-of-work World War I pilots looking for ways to earn money. They staged air shows, gave rides and did aerial stunts to please the public, creating circuses in the air. Vertigo-inducing stunts performed on the wings of biplanes are still a staple of air shows.Battles happened upon wing-walking after she got bored with being a pilot, which she had studied at Oklahoma State University.
"It was like a light went on. I knew I was meant to do this," she said. "But it's so hard up there. I hope I make it look easy. And now I'm fortunate to be the very best at what I do."
E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com
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