trading cards 14-Nancy Bird-Walton
After bending the ear of a pilot who came to her town for two days, she went on an acrobatic flight with him. At that moment her life changed for ever. She was 13 years old.
She got her pilot's licence at the age of 19.
She was a small woman, standing at 4 feet 11 inches. She often had to put a pillow on her seat.
She was one of the most skilful pilots of her time. Once she had a problem with balance, so she quickly landed and piled a dead horse onto one of the wings and was soon back up in the air doing what she did.
Another time, with a lack of visibility due to thick fog, she followed the train tracks and read the station names along the way until she found where she wanted to go.
She spent thousands of hours flying through the skies of Asia and Australia in her time as a pilot and she never had a single accident.
"Oh my God. It's a woman!" was the title given to her autobiography. Exactly the words a farmer spat out at her when she landed her plane to rescue him from a flooded island.
This year, on the 13th of January she died at her Sydney apartment at the age of 93 after she had fulfilled her last wish. Australian airline Quantas named their Airbus A-380 after her and she witnessed it taking off on its maiden flight.
She got her pilot's licence at the age of 19.
She was a small woman, standing at 4 feet 11 inches. She often had to put a pillow on her seat.
She was one of the most skilful pilots of her time. Once she had a problem with balance, so she quickly landed and piled a dead horse onto one of the wings and was soon back up in the air doing what she did.
Another time, with a lack of visibility due to thick fog, she followed the train tracks and read the station names along the way until she found where she wanted to go.
She spent thousands of hours flying through the skies of Asia and Australia in her time as a pilot and she never had a single accident.
"Oh my God. It's a woman!" was the title given to her autobiography. Exactly the words a farmer spat out at her when she landed her plane to rescue him from a flooded island.
This year, on the 13th of January she died at her Sydney apartment at the age of 93 after she had fulfilled her last wish. Australian airline Quantas named their Airbus A-380 after her and she witnessed it taking off on its maiden flight.
