"Walt is ICAS #14, flying airshows since 1963.
His memory of events and people is phenomenal and a national asset. Pierce has flown many many airshows across the Carolinas, known many of the airshow greats and continues to carry on the tradition of the Barnstormer."
Quoted from Hugh Oldham's Proairshow site.
Here are just a few links to get you started with discovering our rich American Barnstorming history...
"A barnstormer often was part stunt pilot, part showman, part grease monkey, part entrepreneur." quoted from Barnstorming pilots always drew a crowd by Joe Earle (The Wichita Eagle, December 3, 1984)
For a look at a very historic "airshow" of sorts, take a look at this amazing footage from 1909 of Wilbur Wright & his Flying Machine.
For a fantastic synopsis on the history of wing walking, visit Silver Wings Wingwalkng Team's Wingwalking History page.
Wing Walkers - U.S. Centennial of Flight
Barnstormers - at PBS Kids
Mabel Cody's Flying Circus - at AirMinded
Lillian Boyer - "Empress of the Air"/Heroes of the Sky at the Henry Ford Museum
Clyde Pangborn - a biography of Clyde Pangborn, 1918-1958
See our fansite for archival video clips of Golden Age Wing Walkers and Daredevils.
Walt Pierce's Barnstorming History...
Len Povey and Art Davis commissioned Walt a "Barnstormer" several years ago, after they all spent some time together. Len and Art had both flown with the Brinton-Bayles Flying Circus around 1930. It took years of travel through the hills and valleys of life before Walt's new title felt comfortable.
When Walt Pierce gives a talk before aviation groups he often says "I have 10,000 hours in a BT-13 and never been off the ground in one." The "BTs" (army basic trainers) were popular in the 1950s for the engines which were removed for installation on Stearman crop dusters. Walt's daily journey was a mile walk to airport property. The retired warbirds were inside a barbed wire containment area and surrounded by tumbleweeds. After 4 years of "BT" cockpit time, he walked up the hill and got a job as a "flag boy" at Callens Flying Service, a crop dusting company; Walt was 16 at that time. He swept the hangar in order to pay for flying lessons.
Walt Pierce as an USAF Cadet.
About our History...
Toll-free: 866-450-1930
Walt joined the U.S. Air Force on his 17th birthday. Too young to be an Aviation Cadet, he was sent to Amarillo AFB to attend aircraft maintenance school on the Boeing B-47. At Walker AFB, New Mexico, training continued on the brand new B-52 and the arriving KC-135. During that time he received his pilot’s license. When honorably discharged, Walt was a flight mechanic on the C-119C "Flying Boxcar" at Kelly Field, Texas.
Two years later a move was made to Waco, Texas where work was found with the legendary Frank Price. Frank was known to movie buffs for his airshow flying as Ernst Kessler in THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER. Walt's new job was to teach aerobatics and fly airshows in a 1929 Great Lakes registered as N202K. His ultimate goal was to be a full time air show performer in a 450 HP Stearman bi-plane. As an added attraction he would feature a lady on the wing.
In 1968 after some seasoning, a Stearman, "Ol' Smokey", was purchased and a 450 Wright J-6-9 engine was installed replacing the original 220 horsepower Continental. The airplane was painted red, white, and blue with a checkered tail. The air shows began.
By 1971 show dates included New York and Chicago. The bulk of them were in the Midwestern Corn Belt. By 1976, performances stretched from Atlantic to Pacific. His lady on the wing was Sandi Pierce. She also flew a Great Lakes bi-plane as a performer.
In 1980, Walt and Jessie Woods trained his new lady to climb down and WALK on the wing. During that time period some remaining pioneers from the 1930s accepted him as one of them. They included wing walker Jessie Woods, Clem Whittenbeck, and Cuban Eight inventor Len Povey.
This photo shows the crop dusting operation at Seminole, TX where Walt worked with Marc Williams (author of For the Love of Flight). The chemical trailers in the foregrouond are the ones Marc speaks of driving to Dalhart, TX. Walt flew the Stearman in the '67 airshow season - it included a dual routine with Don Pittman and Gene Soucy in their Pitts Specials.
Home of American Barnstormer Walt Pierce & the
Double Trouble Wing Walking Team
& Solo Wing Walking, too!
Wing walking and the United States Air Force... bound together since 1918!
While there are a variety of reasons given for the US Army Air Service's Lt. Ormer Locklear's first walk out on the wing in 1918 at Barron Field, Texas, the New York Times reports in an August 4, 1920 article that he had originally begun wing walking because,
"He conceived the idea that it would be possible to mount machine guns on the
wings of a plane. Army officers said it would be impossible to manoeuvre with a
man’s weight on the extreme edge of the wings, and some of his first “stunts”
were done to demonstrate that a plane so weighted could be manoeuvred.”
According to the US Centennial of Flight Commission,
"Although Locklear could have been court-martialed for such antics, his
commanding officer encouraged him, instead, to perform more "stunts" because
they boosted his colleagues' moral, and their confidence in the soundness of
their Jenny biplanes, which were suffering a rash of accidents at the time."
In short, the early USAF saw wing walking as a fantastic and successful recruiting technique!
Additionally, Locklear was the first person to transfer from one plane to another in flight. This is what inspired and led to the world's first air-to-air refueling in 1919; Wesley May, with a five gallon can of gasoline strapped to his back, transferred from a Standard flown by Frank Hawks to a Jenny piloted by Earl Daugherty ("Chewing Gum, Bailing Wire, and Guts" by Bill Rhode, 1970).
