Headcorn wing walk: collector rips open 7 packs of trading cards strapped to a biplane in 120mph winds
London collector Coby Bull has set a Guinness World Records title by opening seven packs of trading cards in one minute while strapped to the top wing of a 1940s biplane above Headcorn Aerodrome in Kent.
Most people open a pack of trading cards sitting at the kitchen table. Coby Bull did it strapped to the top wing of a flying biplane above Kent – and now he has a world record to show for it.
The 33-year-old London collector, who founded the collectables business Edition One, took to the skies on 13 October at Headcorn Aerodrome, near Ashford. Harnessed to the top wing of a 1940s Boeing Stearman biplane about 600ft up, in winds of up to 120mph, he ripped open seven packs of 2025-26 Topps Chrome Update Series Basketball Hobby cards in a single minute – without losing a single card.
Stock photo: Breitling wing walkers on Boeing Stearman biplanes at Oostwold Airshow, the Netherlands, in 2017 – not the actual flight. Photo: Gerard van der Schaaf / CC BY 2.0 (via Wikimedia Commons).
He needed at least six to qualify. Guinness World Records confirmed the next day that seven was enough for the title of most trading card packs opened during a wing walk in one minute.
“Everyone in this hobby knows the feeling of ripping a pack. I wanted to see what it felt like full of adrenaline,” he told What’s The Jam. “My heart was thumping and my hands went totally numb – I was trying my hardest to concentrate. The wind was pulling at every wrapper, and I only had sixty seconds. Seven packs felt like seventy.”
A biplane at Headcorn Aerodrome, Kent, in 2004 – not the record flight. Photo: Dave Bushell / Geograph / CC BY-SA 2.0 (via Wikimedia Commons).
AI illustration – not the real people, cows or plane. (Spot Gaz, our gorilla, hiding somewhere in this picture.)
He admits it is an odd way to spend an afternoon: “People must think I’m a lunatic for standing strapped to the wing of a moving plane just opening cards for the thrill of it.”
Not that it put him off. He went straight back up the same day for a second flight, this time opening cards worth more than $10,000 (about £7,000) – including a rare Mike Trout autograph patch card, one of only five ever made.
AI illustration – an imagined scene, not the real collector or pilot.
It is not his first odd challenge, either: he has already swum to and from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay and completed a seven-day sleigh challenge across Lapland. He has been collecting since he was 12.
Reported by UPI (Ben Hooper) and What’s The Jam, and confirmed by Guinness World Records.
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