Wingwalking Pioneer Ethel Dare

Ethel “Ethel Dare” Gilmore Johnson became the most famous wing walker in the country. She answered an advertisement for a woman who would jump off the wing of a plane. In 1917 and she performed in the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Ethel was up to the challenge and took the name of Ethel Dare. Her name sure fit her. According to reports she didn’t seem scared at all. Ethel looked death in the eye every time she performed. Some of her outrageous stunts took spectators breath away.

There was a controversy about who was the real Ethel Dare because several people claimed that they were the real Ethel Dare. Some say she was Ethel Mann Dare, or Ethel Gilmore Harris or Lady Anomar. She was married three times and Ethel performed under different names.

Ethel was the first person to jump from one speeding plane to another. Ethel did this 30 times.

She performed jumps into Lake Michigan in Illinois.

She washed her hair while standing on the wing of a plane.

She made 500 parachute jumps and tested parachutes

At a state fair in Nashville, Ethel completed two of the most perfect balloon drops. Newspapers reported that her stunt was the best ever performed.

Today there are acts that use wing-walkers but in 1920 it must if been incredible to see Ethel Dare. Most people had never even seen a plane before. There were women that thought it should be against the law to do such dangerous stunts. Other women thought that they belonged in the kitchen not walking on a wing of a plane.

Ethel Dare (born Ethel Gilmore) was the first woman to change planes in the air. Pretty and petite she was billed as the "1920 Aerial Sensation," the "Queen of the Air" or provocatively as "The Flying Witch." Before her career in aviation, she was a flying trapeze performer with the Barnum And Bailey Circus.