Why a former Bishops boy is doing a wing walk

From Mountain Summit to Biplone Wing

Six thousand miles separate the peak of Table Mountain from the upper surface of a vintage 1940s Boeing Stearman. For Luc Janssens, those miles represent not merely geographical distance but decades of accumulated experience - professional achievements, athletic pursuits, and musical endeavors. On July 23rd, this chartered accountant, trail runner, and sometime saxophone player will bridge that gap in the most improbable fashion imaginable.

Janssens plans to strap himself to the top wing of an orange-and-black biplane as it executes aerial maneuvers above England's Cotswolds region at speeds reaching 120 miles per hour. The five-foot platform beneath his feet will offer no handrails, no guardrails, no protective enclosure - only a leather harness standing between him and open air. He describes the entire undertaking as "a bit ridiculous," yet this very absurdity draws supporters in. A mature adult riding invisible currents of wind, gripping nothing but faith in equipment and the goodwill of spectators below - this image captures something essential about human determination.

Every donation flowing into his JustGiving campaign serves a specific purpose. Care for Wild, a sanctuary located in South Africa's Mpumalanga province, receives every penny. This facility functions as the final refuge for rhino calves whose mothers have fallen to poachers wielding chainsaws. The sanctuary's work represents hope at its most fragile and necessary.

The Geography of Rescue and Rehabilitation

The landscape surrounding the Care for Wild sanctuary possesses its own dramatic character. Barberton's mountains rise abruptly from the Lowveld terrain, resembling vertebrae along the spine of the earth itself. Within this rugged terrain lies a clearing where rangers working night shifts warm coffee on portable stoves while monitoring radio frequencies. They listen specifically for the low-frequency signals emitted by ankle collars fitted to vulnerable animals.

Stability typically emerges within forty-eight hours, allowing the young rhino to stand unassisted. By the week's end, that same calf may have destroyed three rubber teats and two pairs of protective boots through energetic behavior. Daily milk expenses alone reach £15 per animal, costs that escalate as rapidly as a Stearman climbing in zoom configuration.

Janssens learned these operational details through channels familiar to many expatriates. His mother, residing in Newlands, forwarded a WhatsApp message at 6:42 AM South African Standard Time. The accompanying caption read simply: "Look what they're doing just outside Nelspruit." He had not maintained permanent residence in South Africa since departing for Imperial College in 2009, carrying minimal luggage and a conditional employment offer from KPMG.

London accumulated around him in layers over subsequent years. Initial flat-sharing arrangements in Shepherd's Bush gave way to marathon medals displayed along curtain rails. Chartered accountancy certificates eventually filled spaces between editions of Weskus Plein and Springbok memorabilia. Yet his mental map of home retained perfect clarity: the distinctive aroma of fynbos vegetation following wildfires, southeasterly clouds cascading over Devil's Peak like theatrical dry ice effects, the piercing distress vocalizations - eeee-aw - that black rhino calves emit during herd stampedes. His pronunciation of "Cirencester" with two hard c sounds still betrays his origins in British social settings, functioning as effectively as any identification barcode.

The Wing-Walk Connection

The convergence of these disparate worlds occurred on an overcast Saturday in Abergavenny. Janssens was forcing feet accustomed to Avanza footwear into fresh Inov-8 running shoes when a woman approached. She wore a Crewsaver jacket and displayed sun-bleached eyebrows. Her direct question - whether he "fancied doing something properly stupid for charity" - initiated everything that followed.

This woman represented the Brecon Beacons Wing-Walking Association, a volunteer organization directing thrill-seekers toward AeroSuperBatics. Within six minutes, Janssens completed an indemnity document exceeding his curriculum vitae in length. He also discovered that the strap-on frame dated to 1930s Kansas, originally engineered for aerial circus performances. His decision crystallized quickly: "I thought about rhinos, and I thought about my niece in Stellenbosch who's never seen one. Then I signed."

AeroSuperBatics operates without superficial gestures. Their pilots - drawn from former RAF service, Red Arrows demonstration teams, and mathematics olympiad competitions - approach display sequences as complex problems requiring strategic thinking. The standard routine encompasses twenty-seven distinct maneuvers: Lazy Eights, Derry Turns, Cuban Eights, Barrel Rolls, Inverted Hearts. Each generates specific G-force vectors that propagate through the wing-walker's physique like acoustic waves through percussion instruments.

At the apex of stall-turn maneuvers, the horizon rotates ninety degrees. For brief moments, the Thames Valley resembles an inverted snow-globe. The human body experiences 2.5 negative Gs; ocular capillaries expand into minute red nebulae visible to observers. Breathing becomes feasible exclusively during recovery intervals when the aircraft floats with throttled-back engine, propeller wind-milling freely. The complete experience spans eight minutes - longer than the typical rhino poaching incident from initial gunshot to horn removal.

Economics of Extinction and Hope

The mathematics of species extinction presents cold elegance. Rhino horn currently commands $60,000 per kilogram on Hanoi's black market, rendering the animal more economically valuable deceased than living. Poachers calculate along straightforward risk-reward parameters: a single .375 caliber bullet costs $8, while one horn may weigh six kilograms. Arrest probability within Kruger National Park remains approximately 3%. Corruption compounds these factors - magistrates bribed to mislabel DNA evidence, rangers secretly functioning as spotters - tilting incentives further toward slaughter.

Care for Wild counters this trajectory by elevating poaching costs through comprehensive security measures. Twenty-four-hour canine patrols, thermal-imaging drones, and mounted horse units capable of navigating riverine bush faster than motorized vehicles constitute their defensive arsenal. Security expenditures alone exceeded £380,000 last year, surpassing the entire educational budget of the surrounding municipal region. Janssens's £25,000 fundraising objective will sustain the K9 unit with freeze-dried chicken provisions and GPS battery replacements for six months.

The calves themselves remain innocent of geopolitical complexities. Their awareness extends only to the tenderness chain beginning with bottle-feeding and ideally concluding with gentle release into 450-hectare enclosures where vegetation grows taller than their snouts. Indigo, currently the youngest resident, arrived at thirty-eight days old. Discovered wandering near Satara with a fractured front leg, she wore a lavender-oil-soaked blindfold - a veterinary technique reducing stress-induced muscle damage. Her records document intake weight (78 kilograms), milk composition (full-cream goat milk, 3% fat), and attempted goring incidents against caregivers (fourteen). At age three, she will join older orphans; at five, she may enter Kruger through designated corridors, horn intact, her ecological value multiplying as a free-ranging browser.

Janssens will inscribe Indigo's name on his left shoe's underside using permanent marker in block capitals. When he surveys the Cotswold landscape from above, she will figuratively return his gaze. This gesture mirrors actions performed by South African diaspora communities worldwide: the Durban native shipping vuvuzelas to Kent schools for educational demonstrations; the Stellenbosch engineer producing 3D-printed components for Cape Town's aging desalination infrastructure; the Gauteng actuary dedicating Boxing Day to reconciling Gift Aid documentation for rural scholarship programs. These connections bind through intertwined data, memory, and responsibility.

Preparation and Corporate Response

Physical preparation for the stunt has followed rigorous patterns. Twice weekly, Janssens suspends himself from pull-up bars in ninety-second intervals, conditioning shoulders for harness pressure. He runs ten-kilometer distances at threshold pace while wearing mouthguards, training nasal breathing despite shock. Complete familiarity with the 1938 RAF pilot manual enables recitation of Stearman specifications: stall speed of 52 miles per hour, fuel consumption of twelve gallons hourly. Following advice from former wing-walkers, he eliminated caffeine intake for thirty days - the hypothesis suggesting that reduced nervous system stimulation accelerates recovery from adrenaline depletion. Whether scientifically valid or not, this practice imparts monastic discipline to the endeavor.

Corporate London has responded with enthusiasm characteristic of professionals who daily model risk in spreadsheet environments. Mercer purchased a £2,500 sponsorship package including logo placement on crash helmets. A Shoreditch financial technology firm auctioned consulting hours from Janssens, bidding against itself to increase contributions. The South African Chamber of Commerce distributed bulletins headlined "Our man on the wing." One anonymous donor contributed £7,000 with the notation: "For the calf that will outlive me." Gift Aid provisions will augment totals by approximately twenty-five percent, transforming each acknowledgment email into minor revelation.

An additional audience exists beyond immediate supporters. Somewhere among granite hills east of Pretoria, poaching cells may scroll through social media, encounter thumbnail images of orange biplanes, and react with derision. Yet such laughter proves fragile when operational terrain increasingly hosts former Zimbabwean reconnaissance personnel and Belgian shepherds trained to penetrate denim with their bites. Care for Wild's intelligence network delivered thirty-eight suspects to authorities in the past year; thirty-four await trial while two received eighteen-year sentences under the National Environmental Management Act. The sanctuary's legal representative maintains a spreadsheet tracking "Days Since Last Conviction," currently displaying 212 and rising.

The Moment of Truth

At 11:07 on July 23rd, assuming twelve-knot westerly winds and cloud bases above 1,500 feet, the Stearman's 450-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engine will ignite. Janssens will ascend to the lower wing, palms dusted with chalk, while ground personnel secure four carabiner clips to collective torque specifications of eighty newton-meters. Carol, age thirty-one, former Tornado GR4 navigator, will signal readiness, and the aircraft will roll onto the grass strip that once prepared pilots for Somme battlefields.

Eight minutes later, as the plane throttles back and glides above the white marquee where contributors sip Pimm's, engine noise will yield to applause echoing against Cotswold limestone. Meanwhile, Indigo will consume another liter of goat-milk formula, K9 units will commence evening patrols, and somewhere in Barberton hills a rhino mother will guide her calf into tall grasses. Neither will know that above England's Thames Valley, a man briefly balanced on the narrow boundary separating extinction from hope.

What is Luc Janssens doing to help rhinos?

Luc Janssens, an accountant, is performing a wing-walk on a vintage biplane to raise £25,000 for Care for Wild. This organization in South Africa rescues and rehabilitates rhino calves orphaned by poaching, with the goal of reintroducing them into the wild to combat rhino extinction.

What is Care for Wild and where is it located?

Care for Wild is a sanctuary located in South Africa's Mpumalanga province, specifically in the rugged terrain near Barberton. It serves as a refuge for rhino calves whose mothers have been killed by poachers, providing them with critical care, security, and rehabilitation before their eventual release back into the wild.

How much money is Luc Janssens trying to raise and for what specific purpose?

Luc Janssens aims to raise £25,000. Every penny of these donations will go to Care for Wild in South Africa. This funding will specifically help sustain their operations, including daily milk expenses for the calves (which cost £15 per animal per day) and for six months of provisions for their K9 unit, including freeze-dried chicken and GPS battery replacements.

What are some details about the wing-walk experience?

Janssens will strap himself to the top wing of a 1940s Boeing Stearman biplane, reaching speeds of up to 120 miles per hour during aerial maneuvers. The five-foot platform has no handrails, and he will be secured by a leather harness. The routine, performed by AeroSuperBatics, includes twenty-seven distinct maneuvers like Lazy Eights and Barrel Rolls, creating G-force vectors. The entire experience lasts eight minutes.

How does Care for Wild protect rhinos from poaching?

Care for Wild employs comprehensive security measures to protect rhinos. These include 24-hour canine patrols, thermal-imaging drones, and mounted horse units that can navigate difficult terrain quickly. Their security expenditures exceeded £380,000 last year, and their intelligence network has led to numerous arrests and convictions of poachers.

Who is Indigo and what is her significance to Luc Janssens's mission?

Indigo is one of the youngest resident rhino calves at Care for Wild, having arrived at just thirty-eight days old with a fractured leg. She was discovered near Satara and is being rehabilitated at the sanctuary. Luc Janssens will inscribe Indigo's name on the underside of his left shoe as a personal reminder of the cause he is supporting, symbolizing the individual rhinos he hopes to save through his efforts.