For those of you who don’t know, I grew up around airplanes and airshows. My dad used to help out alot when Lee Oman (a good friend of my dad’s) was wingwalking for Jimmy Franklin.
Jim Franklin died yesterday while performing an airshow in Canada. He was one of the greatest airshow pilots I have ever seen. He did some crazy stuff, but always knew what he was doing and was very professional about performing airshows.
Several years ago he was at the Portland Rose Festival with Lee as the wingwalker. Lee fell from below the airplane and the safety cable he was using saved him. To make a long story short, Jim did some great flying to help a groundcrew (including my dad) get Lee cut from the cable and onto the ground safely. Rescue 911 did a story on the incident.
The other pilot in this tragedy was Bobby Younkin. I don’t recall ever meeting him in person, but I have seen his airshows. He had been doing this for a long time.
This article has a couple of video stories on the right side of the page about half way down.
Please pray for their families as they cope with this loss. Pray for their friends and fellow airshow performers. Such a sad, sad day.
