Qantas A380

[Min 6]

One of Australia's most famous aviators, Nancy Bird Walton, has died aged 93.

 

Born in the New South Wales north coast town of Kew in 1915, Bird Walton became the first female pilot to get her commercial pilot's licence at the age of 19.

 

She wanted to fly from the age of four and she was taught to take the controls when she was just 17 by Charles Kingsford Smith.

 

She went on to pioneer an air ambulance service for outback New South Wales and was commandant of the Women's Air Training Corps during World War II.

 

Bird Walton also founded the Australian Women Pilots' Association and went on to be president for about 40 years.

 

In 1997, Bird Walton was named a Living National Treasure by the National Trust.

 

Last year Qantas named its first A380 jet in her honour.

 

She is survived by her daughter, her son, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

 

Speaking to the ABC's Peter Thomson in 2006, Bird Walton said she was thrilled by the exhilaration of flying.

 

"The freedom of the air. The freedom of flight," she said on the Talking Heads program.

 

"And you completely remove yourself from the world. And you can voluntarily remove yourself from all those ... everything that's near and dear to you. And you voluntarily return."

 

She said if her father had had his way, she would have followed in his footsteps and run the general store in the town of Mount George, New South Wales.

 

"He was a very hardworking man. He believed in working 16 hours a day. And he thought everybody else should," she said.

 

"When I came down to visit mother, I went out to Mascot in 1930 and had a trial instruction flight with Captain Leggett.

 

"And that convinced me that that was what I wanted to do. So I bought myself a flying helmet and then I went back to the country to save up and grow up."