Capt Walter J. Addems

Foil: 14 Panel: Retired United Pilots Association Column: 1 Line: 7

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. Richard C. Bouska

In 1915, at the age of sixteen, Walt Addems built a glider, and with an auto-tow, taught himself to fly. He was an award-winning athlete in high school. His college education was cut short by his enlisting in the Army during WWI. After the war he built and flew a Curtis-type fifty horsepower airplane.
Walt flew an OX5 Yackey Sport in the 1925 Ford Air Tour, averaging 84.4 MPH. Barnstorming around the Mid-west led to his flying airmail between Chicago and Minneapolis for Charles Dickenson.
In 1927 Walt joined National Air Transport. Flying the mail route east from Chicago, he gained the respect of his peers as a pioneer in new techniques, such as instrument flying. Teaching himself to fly by instruments in NAT mail planes, he became one of the very first pilots in the country to get an official Instrument Rating. He modified a NAT Douglas Mailplane for instrument training, and taught other NAT pilots this new technique in 1932.
After NAT merged with three other airlines to become United Airlines, Walt served as Director of Flying until 1951. In this position he had a significant role in developing airline operating procedures, air traffic control, and development of all new UAL aircraft, from the DC3 to the Boeing 377 (Stratocruiser).
In addition to being one of the most respected professional pilots by those of us that had the good fortune to work with him, he was a meticulous craftsman. After retirement from UAL at the age of sixty, he built an authentic replica of a World War One Nieuport XI with a LaRohne rotary engine. About once a week he flew aerobatics in it until he was eighty-three years of age, when he donated it to the San Diego Aeronautical Museum; capping a distinguished career of sixty-seven years of active flying.
Walt was a charter member of Retired United Pilots Association. His name was enshrined in the OX5 Hall of Fame in 1978. The National Aeronautic Association presented him with an Elder Statesman of Aviation Award in 1989.