By week, Battles is a college student in Tulsa, Okla., a commercially licensed pilot with an office job she calls boring. By weekend, she's Wing-Walking Ashley, a fearless air show performer whose bad day at work means bugs slamming into her mug at 150 mph.

Shelton pilots a red, white and blue 450 Stearman bi-plane that lets Battles dangle between the wings in mid-flight and even climb on top. The show lasts about 12 minutes, and Shelton follows with a solo act.

The Shelton show might not be the loudest or even the strangest act at Mathis Field this weekend. That's reserved for the jet-powered outhouse scheduled to race across the runway.

But judging by the dozens of newspaper interviews Shelton and his wing-walking star have done the past two years, it's bound to be one of the most popular.

Battles said she thinks it has something to do with the risk involved, the wonder at something seemingly so dangerous yet so hard to turn away from.

He was a solo act until two years ago, when he decided he wanted to add a wing-walker. Battles was a pilot who had decided she needed something more than the straight-and-level if she was to stay in aviation.

It's a living, she says, with only a few drawbacks - it's easy to get dehydrated, impossible to get life insurance, and the view from the top wing of a bi-plane has made commercial air travel agonizingly boring.

Eventually, the Ashley-side of her wants to be a full-time pilot, flying cargo plans or working for an airline. In the meantime, though, Wing-Walking Ashley is still in control, maybe someday running an air show business by herself, she said.

Admission: $10 for adults; $8 for students, seniors 60 and older, and active-duty military; San Angelo elementary school students 12 and younger get in free with a pass received at school; children 5 and younger get in free.

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