High-flying women walk tall... on a wing and a pr-a-a-a-yer!

MANY women have to jump through hoops just to get the right lifestyle balance... but this all-female daredevil group take it to a whole other level.

The Breitling Wingwalkers, the world’s only formation wingwalking display team, dazzled crowds in Bray yesterday with their jawdropping sequence of aerobatic manoeuvres. All the while they were attached to the top wings of planes that dust croppers wouldn’t take up; leaving the less-sturdy souls on solid ground below in a tizzy.

But their sky-high antics were only part of the crowd-thrilling display that has become a regular summer feature in the Wicklow town, attracting as many as 50,000 yesterday; Day One of the 11th Bray Air Display.

The headline act yesterday were Italy’s Frecce Tricolori, the most experienced display groups to perform at the two-day event. Here for the first time, their 10 jets closed the show’s first day with loops, twirls and zips across the sky. And the world-famous Red Arrows performed a fly-past along the Liffey yesterday ahead of today’s performance at 2pm.

The home side were represented by the Air Corps, the Defence Forces’ Black Knights parachute team, the Coast Guard Search and Rescue, the Historic Flight Foundation and CityJet’s new Superjet SSJ100.

One man who commanded the sky over the Wicklow shore in a 72-year-old biplane was the legendary Dublin GAA boss Jim Gavin, who is used to keeping an eye on wings of a different kind.