In the original book, it is shown that fairy dust/pixie dust/starstuff/stardust (that's basically the same thing, but with different names) only works on children, as Wendy, when she meets Peter a second time when she has grown up, tells him to "don't waste his fairy dust on er" (I haven't got the book under my eyes, so perhaps these aren't the real words, but.). Also, the "happy thought" are really necessary, because when the Darling children come back to London and stop playing all the time, they progressively lose the ability of flying.
In Barrie's spirit, it seems clear that Peter Pan (as seen in The Little White Bird) doesn't need fairy dust/pixie dust/starstuff/stardust to fly because babies don't need it to fly (it's only that the majority of the babies don't want or don't think to… and whatever, don't search to much consistency in this book, because it is a nonsense book, exactly as "Alice in Wonderland", which doesn't have to always fit with itself. There's a bit more consistency in it than in "Alice", but still.) and that, as Peter Pan went to Neverland when he was only 7 days old, and then stopped growing up. Yes, just forget the 12-years-old teenager of the 1953 film: Peter Pan is a small baby, but who walks on his legs most of the time.
"Peter Pan and the Starcatchers" is a prequel to the book (and, by itself, a very good book, I think), but it only fits with the book, and not with "The little white bird", so it can't be considered as really canon.
But is it the same in the Disney series? Certainly not. But maybe that's because it's not the pixie dust, but something else. Evidence:
- Boy, look at the EARS of Peter Pan in this films; it seems that Peter Pan is not entirely (and maybe even not AT ALL) a real human, he has something of the nature of a leprechaun!
Yes, it's true, in the "Tinker Bell" spin off, pixies themselves need pixie dust to fly. But, wait a minute...
- If that's true, what is the use of their WINGS ?
- And in the 1953 film, it seems that Tink doesn't live with the other fairies anymore. In that case, how, but tell me HOW, does she get her pixie dust to fly ? And, in addition to that, the very large quantity of dust that Tinker Bell leaves behind her when she flies in the film seems extremely superior to the quantity that can obviously be found in the bags that the pixies daily receive in the spin off series.
That being said, the spin off is a prequel, which seems to take place around the XVIIIth century (as we can see the young Captain Hook in one of the films). It is possible that between this films and the 1953 film (which happens around 1900/1910, according to the sequel in which we see Wendy as a adult woman in 1939), "something" (but what ?) happened who makes that at least Tink and Peter can have as much pixie dust as they want.