World Airshow News has chosen Gary Ward as the 2022 recipient of the Bill Barber Award for Showmanship.
One of the most prestigious awards in the airshow industry, the list of Barber honorees reads like an airshow hall of fame. Past winners include Bob Hoover, Michael Goulian, Julie Clark, Patty Wagstaff, and Sean D. Tucker.
Gary Ward learned to fly as a teenager and later served four years in the Air Force as a jet engine mechanic. After his service, he earned his aerospace engineering degree from Georgia Tech in 1968 and then spent about a year working with Cessna Aircraft Company as a design engineer on the original Cessna Citation business jet.
At his father’s request, he returned home to Lincolnton, Georgia, to work in the family lumber manufacturing business where he spent the remainder of his working career.
Always a passionate aviator, Gary and a friend bought a wrecked Pitts S2-B in the mid-1990s, had it rebuilt, and Gary essentially taught himself aerobatics.
Although he originally had no intention to do airshow flying, another friend was flying competition and airshows in an Extra 230. He pushed Gary to get involved and helped him get his first airshow waiver. Gary flew his first airshow at Wilson, North Carolina, in 1998 at age 57 and was “hooked.”
Shortly after getting the Pitts flying, Gary had already contracted to build a Giles 202 monoplane, in which he began performing in 1999. After performing in the Giles for eight years, Gary bought the more powerful and capable MX2, which he flew from 2006 until the present. He was the first performer to fly airshows in the MX2.
The all carbon fiber MX2 enabled Gary to explore the envelope with all types of gyroscopic maneuvers and all the things an airplane “isn’t supposed to do,” he noted.
In more than two decades of airshow flying, Gary has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. He has flown numerous shows in Alaska and as far south as Panama. On April 6, 2022, at the SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida, Gary flew what he says is his final airshow performance at the age of 80.
Gary still owns a Piper J-3 Cub, a Super Cub, and a Robinson R-44 helicopter and says he plans to do a lot more flying.
The Bill Barber Award for Showmanship began in 1986 and is awarded to airshow performers or teams that have demonstrated great skill and showmanship. World Airshow News magazine and the friends and family of the late Bill Barber present the award annually. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no awards were presented in 2020 and 2021.
The Bill Barber Award for Showmanship presentation is planned to take place during the 2022 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, scheduled for July 25-31, 2022.
I think Gary has more energy in his pinky finger than the rest of us do in our whole bodies, and he just loves airplanes. Happy retirement to Gary!
Gary loved all kinds of flying, not just aerobatics. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the High Sierra Fly-in in 2015. Gary actually flew the MX all the way from Georgia and landed it on the dry lake bed where he camped with the rest of the backcountry pilots. Long cross country flights in a competitive aerobatic plane are difficult and they have very little storage room for camping gear. Unlike the Skywagons and Maules that can haul everything, including the kitchen sink, Gary’s MX was barely able to fit a tiny tent. Other airplane campers provided everything he was missing, and Gary put on an airshow over the desert as thanks. He is an impressive guy and will be missed on the airshow circuit.
Congrats Gary, Well deserved I am proud to call you my friend and hope to come see you soon Ed’
Well deserved Gary. Congratulations!
Congrats on a great aerobatic career!! We now expect to see your name on the roster at ArkanSTOL!! Best regards, “175” Ken