Lore has it that “Speed” and some of his friends an admirers held a big party the night before to celebrate one of his recent Air Derby victories. Supposedly, he had less than an hour’s sleep before taking to the sky in his famed black Laird bi-plane with X-7808 emblazoned on its golden wings. (The plane’s wings were finished with gold powder mixed with varnish).

            “Charlie had gone to Winnipeg before the party to get some spirits – it was prohibition, you know,” his nephew, also named Charles W. Holman, told the History Centre in 2003. “I guess it was in preparation for what was to come.”

            Some years ago, the conversation got to wondering if anybody had ever done an outside loop in a Ford Tri-motor. (Starting right side-up and going down and around). Northwest Captain Walter Bullock, also a legend in his own time, settled the matter. In a memo to a member of Northwest’s Public Relations Department in 1956 he wrote; “I don’t think anyone ever did an outside loop in a Ford Tri-motor. Charlie was the first one to fly one upside down, or rather on its back, looping, etc. (an inside loop). He did this, I think, at the Air Races in Detroit”.

            Walter Bullock learned to fly in Newport News, Virginia, in 1916. On November 29 of that year, he received license No. 630 from the Aero Club of America. At that time, it’s believed he was the youngest person in America to receive a pilot’s license. Bullock joined Northwest Sept. 1, 1927 at the urging of his friend, “Speed” Holman. For a time, he succeeded Chad Smith as Operations Manager on Oct. 1, 1931, Northwest’s fifth anniversary, after Smith succumbed to an emergency appendectomy. (Smith had succeeded Holman earlier that year).

            In 1954, Bullock became the first Northwest pilot to log 25,000 hours. Adding additional Northwest time and time he spent in his own planes his total flight time perhaps exceeded 35,000 hours. He was the first Northwest pilot forced to retire at age 60 due to the new Federal flying regulations. His last NWA flight was March 15, 1961.

            A genius working with wood (and an accomplished mechanic, too) Bullock, in the late 1940s, built from scratch a replica 1916 Curtiss Pusher on which he learned to fly. A product of his Lakeville, Minnesota “carpenter shop,” he tooled around on it for several years. In 1954 he offered it to Northwest for $1,000, $500. below a previous offer. Suffering through one of its all-too-frequent cash crunches, Northwest turned him down.

            One reason that may have prompted his selling it was because all his insurance policies were suspended when he was flying the Pusher. “But there isn’t much of a chance of an accident if the motor should conk out,” he nonetheless said. “It’s easy to glide and if it stalls it’s tail heavy and would sink tail first.”

            In an interesting exchange of correspondence now at the NWA History Centre, Bullock made the following reply to NWA Public Relations when it was suggested it was time to do a book about his life:

            “As for the book you suggest, I’d like to do it for you but I still have nothing to write about. If you’d get Hunter (Northwest executive Croil Hunter) to give you his story of how things really happened I’m sure “True Detective” or some other crime magazine would be glad to run it.”

            A native of Casselton, North Dakota and a Yale graduate, Croil Hunter joined Northwest as Traffic Manager in 1932. He was named Northwest’s President five years later. Bullock left Northwest for a period during the mid-1930’s, returning as a pilot Feb. 11, 1937. Details of their relationship have been erased by time. Hunter died in 1970 and Bullock in 1986.

The above story was written by History Centre Director Bob Johnson who was on the Northwest Public Relations Staff and Editor of the Northwest News during the late 1950’s. Bob enjoyed a close friendship with Walter Bullock.