Wirraway
12th Aug 2004, 15:20
Fri "The Australian"
With a Bird in hand, it's open skies for aviatrix
By Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
August 13, 2004
PIONEERING pilot Nancy Bird Walton's only flying these days is as a passenger, but she vividly recalls the day - more than 70 years ago - when she took her first serious lesson with Charles Kingsford Smith.
Just 17 years old, she had been saving for more than three years to achieve a dream that had filtered into a child's imagination during the England-Australia Air Race of 1919, and been nurtured by the barnstorming days of the 1920s.
"All through the 20s, it was the age of the arrival of aeroplanes," she recalls.
"And there was a magnetic line between myself and any aeroplane in the sky."
The 88-year-old aviation pioneer will today celebrate - somewhat belatedly - her seven-decade love affair with aviation.
It was actually 71 years ago that she strapped herself into a Gypsy Moth, with a sceptical Smithy, and set herself on a course that would make Australian aviation history.
But a miscalculation meant the 70th milestone went unremarked.
She became Kingsford Smith's first student in 1933 in the face of dire predictions there would never be an opening in aviation for women.
She notes that even Kingsford Smith did not quite approve of women flying, before adding with satisfaction: "There are now 60 women pilots in Qantas, 10 of them captains."
Bird Walton made work for herself barnstorming around country fairs to pay off the debts she incurred buying an aircraft.
In 1935, she got a commercial licence and became Australia's first professional woman pilot, operating an aerial ambulance and baby-clinic service for the Far West Children's Health Scheme in NSW. It would be 16 years before another woman landed a paid job in flying.
By that time, the aviatrix had gone on to produce an exhibition and command the Women's Air Training Corp during World War II.
These days, the obstacles facing would-be women pilots are more often financial.
The pioneer's advice to young women wanting to fly these days is to avoid the expense by taking a hard look at flying training through the armed services. "The thing is to do the right subjects at school and try to get a scholarship," she says.
"If you can't get a scholarship, get into the services - they all have aircraft now - with the intention of transferring as soon as you're able. "I met two girls at Nowra (NSW) - one was a mechanic and one was a computer operator - and they're both flying helicopters now."
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With a Bird in hand, it's open skies for aviatrix
By Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
August 13, 2004
PIONEERING pilot Nancy Bird Walton's only flying these days is as a passenger, but she vividly recalls the day - more than 70 years ago - when she took her first serious lesson with Charles Kingsford Smith.
Just 17 years old, she had been saving for more than three years to achieve a dream that had filtered into a child's imagination during the England-Australia Air Race of 1919, and been nurtured by the barnstorming days of the 1920s.
"All through the 20s, it was the age of the arrival of aeroplanes," she recalls.
"And there was a magnetic line between myself and any aeroplane in the sky."
The 88-year-old aviation pioneer will today celebrate - somewhat belatedly - her seven-decade love affair with aviation.
It was actually 71 years ago that she strapped herself into a Gypsy Moth, with a sceptical Smithy, and set herself on a course that would make Australian aviation history.
But a miscalculation meant the 70th milestone went unremarked.
She became Kingsford Smith's first student in 1933 in the face of dire predictions there would never be an opening in aviation for women.
She notes that even Kingsford Smith did not quite approve of women flying, before adding with satisfaction: "There are now 60 women pilots in Qantas, 10 of them captains."
Bird Walton made work for herself barnstorming around country fairs to pay off the debts she incurred buying an aircraft.
In 1935, she got a commercial licence and became Australia's first professional woman pilot, operating an aerial ambulance and baby-clinic service for the Far West Children's Health Scheme in NSW. It would be 16 years before another woman landed a paid job in flying.
By that time, the aviatrix had gone on to produce an exhibition and command the Women's Air Training Corp during World War II.
These days, the obstacles facing would-be women pilots are more often financial.
The pioneer's advice to young women wanting to fly these days is to avoid the expense by taking a hard look at flying training through the armed services. "The thing is to do the right subjects at school and try to get a scholarship," she says.
"If you can't get a scholarship, get into the services - they all have aircraft now - with the intention of transferring as soon as you're able. "I met two girls at Nowra (NSW) - one was a mechanic and one was a computer operator - and they're both flying helicopters now."
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