Walter J. Boyne (born 1929) is a retired United States Air Force officer, combat veteran, aviation historian, and author of more than 50 books and over 1,000 magazine articles. He is a former director of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.
Walter Boyne grew up the son of a poor family in East Saint Louis, Illinois during the time of the Great Depression. He attended Holy Angels grade school where he first discovered an interest in writing. His love of flying was encouraged by dime novels of the day such as Robert J. Hogan's G-8 and His Battle Aces that depicted "America's World War I Flying Spy" engaged in air-to-air combat. He decided at this young age that he would become a pilot for the Air Force and focused his efforts to achieve that goal. Boyne earned a number of scholarships that enabled him to attend Washington University in St. Louis.
In May 1951, after two years at the university, Boyne entered the Aviation Cadet program where he learned a profound respect for the enlisted grades of the military. Boyne started flight school in November 1951 and became the first of his class to solo. On December 19, 1952 he was awarded his wings as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force.
While stationed at Castle Air Force Base in central California, Boyne flew the B-50 Superfortress as a member of the 330th Bomb Squadron of the 93rd Bomb Wing. Although Boyne had relatively few hours in bombers, he received orders in May 1954 to McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas for training in the B-47 Stratojet which he flew for several years. In 1957, he returned to college and graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in business administration. Boyne continued his education and earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Pittsburgh.
Boyne returned to active flying as a nuclear test pilot with the 4925th Nuclear Test Group at Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque, New Mexico. While at Kirtland, he became an aircraft commander in the B-47 and B-52 Stratofortress. Boyne served during the Vietnam War as commander of the 635th Services Squadron at U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Base where he flew 120 combat hours as a C-47 Skytrain instructor pilot. Colonel Boyne retired from the Air Force on June 1, 1974 with more than 5,000 hours in various aircraft.
Boyne began his writing career in 1962 while still in the Air Force. Tired of the repetitive aviation articles of the time, he chose to write about lesser-known people and airplanes starting with an article on the Curtiss P-36. Boyne's article was accepted by a magazine in Britain which paid him $29 ... a moment of special pride for the new author. The P-36 aircraft now resides in the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. A very prolific writer, Boyne is the author of over fifty books and over one thousand magazine articles.
Works
Non-fiction
(1979) The Jet Age: Forty Years of Jet Aviation
(1980) Messerschmitt Me 262: Arrow to the Future
(1980) Flying, an introduction to flight, airplanes, and aviation careers
(1981) Boeing B-52: A Documentary History
(1982) The Aircraft Treasures of Silver Hill
(1983) Vertical Flight: The Age of the Helicopter
(1984) De Havilland DH-4: From Flaming Coffin to Living Legend
(1985) Phantom in Combat
(1986) The Leading Edge
(1987) The Smithsonian Illustrated History of Flight
(1988) The Smithsonian Book of Flight for Young People
(1988) The Power Behind The Wheel
(1990) Flight
(1991) Weapons of Desert Storm (New York Time's Best Seller List)
(1991) Gulf War
(1992) Classic Aircraft
(1992) Art in Flight: The Sculpture of John Safer
(1993) Silver Wings
(1994) Clash of Wings: World War II in the Air
(1995) Clash of Titans
(1995) Fly Past, Fly Present
(1997) Beyond the Wild Blue, A History of the USAF, 1947—1997
(1998) Beyond the Horizons:The Story of Lockheed
(1999) Brassey's Air Combat Reader (editor)
(2001) Aces in Command: Fighter Pilots as Combat Leaders
(2001) German Military Aircraft
(2001) The Best of Wings
(2001) Aviation 100, Volume I
(2001) Classic Aircraft, 2001
(2002) Aviation 100, Volume II
(2002) The Two O'Clock War
(2003) Aviation 100, Volume III
(2003) Encyclopedia of Air Warfare
(2003) The Influence of Air Power on History
(2003) Chronicle of Flight: A Year-By-Year History of Aviation
(2003) Rising Tide
(2003) Operation Iraqi Freedom, What Went Right, What Went Wrong and Why
(2003) The Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to the U.S. Air Force
(2003) The Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to the U.S. Navy
(2003) The Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to the U.S. Army
(2003) The Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to the U.S. Marines
(2004) Today's Best Military Writing
(2007) Soaring to Glory: the Story of the Air Force Memorial
Fiction
(1986) The Novel of the U.S. Air Force
(1989) Trophy for Eagles
(1991) Eagles at War
(1992) Air Force Eagles
(1993) Eagles at War
(2003) Dawn Over Kitty Hawk: The Novel of the Wright Brothers
In 1974, after retiring from the Air Force, Boyne joined the National Air and Space Museum as curator of air transport. Prior to the opening of the museum in 1976, he was assigned responsibility for introducing all aircraft into their exhibits. Boyne was responsible for transforming the museum's dilapidated Silver Hill facility into the world's premier restoration facility. He also organized the effort to rename the facility in honor of Paul E. Garber, a curator of the National Air Museum—the predecessor to the National Air and Space Museum.
Boyne was named acting director of the museum in 1982, and director on February 10, 1983. Boyne performed a number of notable actions during his tenure as museum director including:
Founded the best-selling aviation magazine Air & Space
Orchestrated flights of an IMAX camera on the Space Shuttle
Supervised the production of the IMAX movies The Dream is Alive and On the Wing
Worked with FAA Administrator Donald Engen to provide the land upon which the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center was built
Arranged for the to be flown and stored at the museum in 1985
Pioneered the museum's video disc program and patented the "Digitizer" automated storage and retrieval system
In 1998, Boyne co-founded the cable television channel, Wingspan—the Air and Space Channel, that was purchased by the Discovery Channel a year later. Boyne lives in Ashburn, Virginia. His first wife, the former Jeanne Quigley died in 2007. They have four children, Molly, Katie, Bill and Peggy, five grandchildren, J.D., Grace, Walter, Charlotte and Charles. Boyne remarried on January 10, 2008 to Terezia Takacs.
In 1984, Boyne was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Aerospace Sciences from Salem College, West Virginia. In 1987, the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) awarded him the Cliff Henderson Trophy for lifetime achievement in aviation. In 1998, the NAA named him an Elder Statesman of Aviation that honors outstanding Americans, age 60 and above, that have made contributions of significant value to aeronautics. Also in 1998, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale honored Boyne with the Paul Tissandier Diploma awarded to those who have served the cause of Aviation in general and Sporting Aviation in particular. In 2005, the Aircraft Industries Association presented Boyne with the Lauren D. Lyman Award for outstanding achievement in aviation public relations. In 2007, he was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame.
