Nancy Bird Walton

Nancy Bird Walton (16 October 1915 – 13 January 2009) was a pioneering Australian aviatrix, and was the founder and patron of the Australian Women Pilots' Association. In the 1930s, defying the traditional role of women of her time, she became a fully qualified pilot at the age of 19, and became the youngest Australian woman to gain a pilot's licence.

Sourced

• Other women who flew were women of independent means. But I had to do something with it.
  • Nancy Bird Walton in March 2004 http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/aviation/aviatrices/

• Things like radio etc. didn't exist. You passed an aeroplane on the right and the aircraft landing had priority over the one taking off. There was no control tower, and no control. If you were going to practice flying through cloud you told someone on the aerodrome that's what you were going to do and that was enough!
  • "Nancy Bird-Walton, O.B.E (1915-2009)", Hargrave.

• As a four-year-old, my mother told me I was climbing the fence, jumping off and calling myself an 'eppyplane' … I bought books on aeroplanes, I followed everything in the newspapers about aeroplanes. Amy Johnson flew to Australia in 1930 - why couldn't I do something like that?
  • Nancy Bird Walton in an interview with George Negus on George Negus Tonight, 8 March 2004 http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/aviation/aviatrices/

External links

• ABC, 2002, Australians, Nancy Bird-Walton
• Monash University, 2004, Hargrave : the Pioneers, Celebrating the bicentennial of aviation 1804-2004
• Aviation pioneer Nancy Bird Walton dies Sydney Morning Herald
• Aussie female air pioneer Nancy Bird Walton dies News.com.au