Australian Women Pilots’ Association to honour founder Nancy-Bird Walton

The NSW branch of the Australian Women’s Pilots’ Association (AWPA) is celebrating the career of Nancy-Bird Walton on what would have been the pioneer aviatrix’ 100th birthday.

The dinner is being held at Dolton House in Sydney on Friday October 16, a hundred years to the day from Walton’s birth in 1915.

Walton, who was the youngest Australian women to gain a pilot’s licence, founded the Australian Women’s Pilot’s Association in 1950 and was the AWPA’s first president.

Her achievements were recognised with the naming of Qantas’s first Airbus A380, VH-OQA, in her honour. Walton, the first woman to gain a commercial pilot’s licence in Australia, was declared a national living treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1977.

Walton died on January 13 2009, aged 93.