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Female wingwalkers hope to inspire young girls to try aviation

Principal Photography LLC by Joh MOVER AND AVIATOR:  Melissa Pemberton

HIGH-FLYING ENTERTAINMENT Carol Pilon (top) and Melissa Pemberton (right) will perform as the Tombstone Riders at the Dayton Air Show. They  pose with Pilon’s team,  Third Strike  Wingwalking.

Jim Rogers (Provided) HIGH-FLYING ENTERTAINMENT Carol Pilon (top) and Melissa Pemberton (right) will perform as the Tombstone Riders at the Dayton Air Show. They  pose with Pilon’s team,  Third Strike  Wingwalking.

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By Natalie Knoth, Staff Writer 4:55 PM Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The world’s only current all-female wing-walking team will take to the Dayton skies this week, infusing a Western narrative with awe-dropping aerobatics and stunts.

The Tombstone Riders act is a tale of Wild West desperadoes, complete with costumes and voice-overs starring  Carol Pilon and Melissa Pemberton.

While the act is expected to captivate spectators of all ages, Pilon expects the performance to be a hit among children in particular.

“It’s fun for kids because they can’t always appreciate the complexity of an act but always like a good story,” Pemberton said. “Plus, we will be prancing around in big dresses.”

A native of Canada, Pilon owns the North American team Third Strike Wingwalking, while Pemberton of Pittsburgh owns Pemberton Aerosports (formerly Melissa Aerosports). Pemberton also will execute a solo aerobatics routine.

Pemberton and Pilon met a few years ago through a mutual aviation friend, Rob Holland.

In her mid-20s, Pilon had quit school and was unsure what to do with her life. She came home from work and saw a wing-walking act on TV and had a sudden revelation: She had to get involved.

“It took seven years of begging and pleading every wing-walking team in North America before they would let me try it,” she said. “I stuck to it like a bulldog.”

For Pemberton, aviation was a family affair from a young age. Her grandmother gave Pemberton her first aerobatics lesson in elementary school, in her Cessna 150 Aerobat. When she was a teenager, her grandfather, a test pilot, let her take the pilot’s seat and taught her the basics of flying.

By age 22, Pemberton was the youngest woman on the U.S. Unlimited Aerobatics Team, and now, at age 27, she’s still among the youngest performers, may of whom are in their 40s or 50s. Pemberton said she’s used to hearing comments about her youth, but she doesn’t mind.

“It’s funny, because I get ‘Oh, you’re so young,’ so often, but I don’t feel that way because I’ve been flying for 10 years,” Pemberton said. “It seems like a while for me, but some people have been doing this for as long as I’ve been alive.”

Though women comprise only about 6 percent of the aviation industry, Pilon said she’s seen the number of female pilots increasing recently and hopes to encourage more girls to get involved.

“I wish every woman would be able to see it,” Pilon said of the Tombstone Riders show. “I hope we can be good role models and lure women to aviation.”

Bringing the skies to girls in Ghana

Melissa Pemberton and her husband, Rex — whom she met while flying in Sidney, Australia — are introducing girls in Ghana to aviation and mechanics, through Medicine on the Move, an organization working to provide medical care to remote villages. Girls are taught to build and fly planes with the goal of conducting missions to help their communities,

“My role is trying to spread the word through the airs shows, and to send them to California to get their upgrade from a light-sport pilot’s license to a commercial pilot’s license,” Pemberton said.

Rex created a documentary on the project, called “The Calling,” which can be viewed on Pemberton’s website at sportsgal.com. For more information on Medicine on the Move, visit medicineonthemove.org.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2293 or nknoth@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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