Pilot Pat Rutherford celebrates her 100th birthday by flying again

ONE of Australia’s first female pilots Pat Rutherford took to the skies again today to celebrate the extraordinary milestone of her 100th birthday.

• Sydenham to Bankstown corridor could accommodate 60,000 homes
• Pilot escapes injury in plane crash

HER grasp of dates may be foggy these days, but Pat Rutherford’s memories of taking to the skies remain crystal clear.

Today, the Willoughby resident marked an extraordinary milestone, celebrating her 100th birthday by flying a plane once more.

Surrounded by family, friends and peers, Dr Rutherford embarked on the flight at Bankstown Airport, where she first learnt how to fly several decades ago.

She was one of Australia’s first female pilots to gain an instrument rating in the late 1960s to early ’70s and during her 30 years of flying the GP travelled all over the country and visited Papua New Guinea.

Dr Rutherford is one of Australia’s first female pilots to get an instrument rating. Picture: Angelo Velardo

An instrument rating is one of the most challenging qualifications a pilot can pursue, requiring 40 hours of intense training to allow pilots to fly in bad weather conditions with sole reliance on flight instruments and navigational aids.

Taking off in a Cherokee Warrior this morning, Dr Rutherford was accompanied by Aminta Hennessy, the first Australian woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1978.

Pilot Aminta Hennessey helps Dr Pat Rutherford into the aeroplane at Bankstown Airport. Picture: Angelo Velardo

But the milestone pales in comparison to having all her loved ones around her, she said.

“Family is better than being 100,” she said. “To have everybody around is much better than any date because dates mean nothing.”

Dr Rutherford gave up flying in the late 1980s, aged in her 70s.

Since retiring from her medical practice, Dr Rutherford has been living on her own with the assistance of longtime friend and carer Merv Moore.

Australian Women Pilots’ Association Air Reliability Trial New South Wales entrants Dr. Pat Rutherford, Margaret Sincotts, Meg Cornwell, Alix Newbigin, Jacqueline Smith, Marie Richardson and Senja Havard (from left) stand in front of an Auster monoplane on the tarmac at an airfield in 1953. Picture: Australian News and Information Bureau

“Now I’m just laughing, sitting in the sun, doing a little bit of gardening, looking after my own home of course,” she said with a smile.

Having flown “all over the place” with her late husband, she is now content with a slower lifestyle.

It was a trip to New Zealand and a flight over the country’s highest mountain, Mt Cook, in the 1940s that ignited her passion for flying.

“We landed in the hotel grounds. I couldn’t wait to get back to Sydney to learn to fly,” Dr Rutherford said.

Dr Pat Rutherford with a snake at Bankstown Airport in the mid-1950s. She and a peer took the snake up to the control tower to prank the controllers.

“I can fly all day and endure it, but I can’t drive all day and endure it and I just like being (able to) see everything.”

Pilot and instructor Ray Clamback, 81, who met Dr Rutherford while she was training for an instrument rating, recalls the doctor travelling from Willoughby to Bankstown after a day’s work to get her qualifications.

Nancy Walton, Sir William Slim, Dr. Pat Rutherford, Jane Barling and Margaret Davis at the Australian Women Pilots' Association annual meeting in 1954. Pic: National Library of Australia

“I’d be able to go out there at night in another aeroplane at the same time as she was ... and she’d train away.

“She wasn’t the first woman to get it (pilot’s instrument rating), but she was very close to it,” Mr Clamback said.

Son-in-law Mathew Cherian, 79, said she was still “active and mentally really alert”.

“It’s not everyday that you turn 100,” he said.

Dr Pat Rutherford embarks on a celebratory flight at Bankstown Airport to mark her 100th birthday. Picture: Angelo Velardo