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Aerial daredevils

At the head of the short runway the engine of the glistening red-and-white Stearman guns to an ear-shattering level and the biplane rolls forward. The dust swirls up and then, as the plane gets closer, the crowd discovers that a person is standing on the top wing. The Stearman lifts off, and as it climbs out over the grandstand, the pilot does a slow, 360-degree roll. Spectators hold their breath. After a series of maneuvers at 500 feet the airplane makes a low pass in front of the stands, upside down. The person on the wing, strapped to a strut, waves reassuringly. When the plane lands, the wing walker, a small, pretty woman named Judy Cole, whose frail appearance hardly suggests a talent for riding the wing of a flying airplane, alights and bows, acknowledging the cheers. Her performance is one act of the Cole Brothers' Flying Circus, which aerobat husband Duane started 17 years ago. The Cole Circus is the last of many such aerial shows which flourished in the days before the airplane became just another common carrier. The Coles find that daredevil performances with little airplanes can still thrill the crowds at airports all over the country. 

[[image]] Breathtaking wing stunt is calmly performed on biplane by mother of three, Mrs. Duane Cole.