Go flying with the shortest wing walker as he proves being different won't hold him down

A Canadian YouTube star became the world’s shortest wing walker to prove that "even if you're different, you can achieve your goals".

John Ferguson, who has achondroplasia dwarfism, braved the UK’s infamous rainy weather when he took to the skies strapped to the top of an aeroplane.

Flying through the air at over 100 mph, John became the shortest person to wing walk (male) at a height of 1.24 m (4 ft 1.12 in).

The 27-year-old social media star broke the record by Kiran Shah (UK) that had stood since 2010. Kiran was 1.263 cm (4 ft 1.7 in) tall.

This isn’t something John had ever done before, but he’s been completely converted and reckons it’s something everyone should consider trying once.

“It is just such a cool perspective being all the way up there in the sky,” he said.

“And I think in life we learn to be a bit too comfortable in our own skin and in our own day-to-day life. You need to do something scary at least a few times in your life to really appreciate what you have.”

The idea for John’s record-breaking flight came about when he was looking for cool content ideas to film for his YouTube channel during his trip to England.

He said he looked up the “craziest things to do in England” and found wing walking.

He said: “I did a little bit of research on that and I thought, ‘is this even legal in Canada?’

“I looked it up. There's not much offerings of it where I'm from, so I wanted to do something crazy. I wanted to really step out of my comfort zone, or fly out of my comfort zone, I should say.”

And a crazy experience is exactly what he got.

He told us: “The main memory from this experience is definitely when I was going nose first into the ground. And I truly thought Brian [the pilot] had lost fuel on the plane, but then he swooped right back up.

“Obviously, leading up to this whole extreme event was very nerve wracking, but once I was strapped in, I felt very comfortable and I thought, ‘well, there's no turning back now’.”

He added: “I wasn't expecting this plane to go as quick as it did. They said it went over 100 mph with the rain as well – a million water droplets smack in my face.

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“I've never felt like I was going faster in my entire life. I've never ridden a motorcycle. None of that. It felt like I was in a car, and I stuck my head out the window in the Autobahn or something. But no, it was really cool. It wasn't the most comfortable with the rain, but it's something that I could get over.

“It was really the fact that I was 100 ft in the air, and I could have fallen at any moment.”

John’s online career started when he hid in a washing machine to jump out and scare his friend and the video got 17 million views on Vine.

Today, he has over 2 million followers across his social media accounts where he posts his funny videos.

This was his first Guinness World Records title – something he’s always wanted to achieve - and he’s confident it won’t be his last. 

He’s on the hunt for more adrenaline-fuelled challenges and is considering things like horse riding, paragliding, and even skydiving.

But he said: “I need to see how my mom reacts to me doing this before I fully decide what's next on the adrenaline hunt.”