I could hear the plane before I could see it, the engine growling loudly. And then the scarlet biplane came into view, a dark figure suspended between the parallel wings becoming more distinct as it flew toward the Lake Erie shoreline where thousands of spectators were waiting for the next air show act.



That figure was Carol Pilon, one of the world’s last remaining wingwalkers, and she appeared to be floating, the finger-width flying wires supporting her invisible to the audience from that distance. Her longtime pilot, Marcus Paine, accelerated into a loop, drawing a large cursive O in the sky with smoke; only centrifugal force and Pilon’s own strength kept her from falling as the plane flew upside down and then righted itself barely a hundred feet above the waterfront showbox. Then the 1940 Boeing Stearman turned away from the shore, providing the audience with a silhouette of the biplane, Pilon suspended like a spider over her carefully spun web.

Paine gained altitude and turned back toward the crowd before pulling back the throttle, stopping the propeller blades and the 150 mile-per-hour blast that could blow Pilon off the wing. The 2,000-pound Stearman glided gracefully as a seabird while Pilon moved off the wires and wove herself between the struts toward the cockpit, balancing on the narrow wooden spar that makes up the spine of the wing and the only beam strong enough to hold her weight. This was the moment when the audience realized that she, truly, was walking on the wing, hundreds of feet in the air. If the pilot didn't fly level, if a bird were to hit her, there would be little she could do, no matter her years of experience and thousands of hours of training.

Pilon climbed up, past the cockpit and onto the top wing where a slender pole was affixed. From the shore the audience could barely make out the moment she strapped her safety belt onto the brace with a heavy carabineer. She gave a wave to the crowd and signaled to Paine. The plane had been losing altitude while she transitioned, and the engine started up again with a roar.

The next sequence with Pilon “on the top rack,” as she calls it, involved Paine directing the Stearman through a series of aerobatic maneuvers: a loop, barrel roll, figure eight. Pilon’s job is to project beauty and grace from the wing and also to not die spectacularly. She waved to the audience as the pair flew low and then she transitioned to more intricate balances: the Mercury Man with arms outstretched and one foot raised, and the Human Flag, where she hangs her body off the brace. And then Paine flew off, Pilon’s dark figure contrasted against the white of the clouds, the pale blue of the sky, a woman on top of the world.