Aviation pioneer Nancy Bird Walton was the “Angel of the Outback”

She would navigate by telegraph lines, dead animals and droppings but Nancy Bird Walton was one of Australia’s greatest aviation pioneers.

Aviation pioneer Nancy Bird Walton.

Nancy Bird Walton was obsessed with flying from almost as soon as she could walk.

By the time she was four, she was jumping off a fence, calling herself an “eppyplane”.

She was inspired by pioneering English pilot Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia, and asked herself, “Why couldn’t I do something like that?”

Nancy Bird Walton is the subject of the latest episode of the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters:

Her story is told in the new book Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits by Jim Haynes, who dubs the aviation pioneer “the feisty female flyer”.

Nancy went on to become the first Australian woman to run a commercial air service – at age 20 – earning her the nickname “The Angel of the Outback”.

Nancy Bird Walton with her Leopard at Bourke in 1935.

While flying in the outback, Nancy transported medical staff, carried packages, rescued people in floods, and ferried Father Christmas to Outback towns at a time when aviation was primitive.

“She said she used to navigate by things like a dead horse, or the telegraph line, or even animal droppings,” Haynes says.

“People would say, ‘If you fly along the telegraph line, turn left where all those kangaroo droppings are, pass the dead horse and you’ll find us.”

Whenever she got lost, Nancy would land her plane at the nearest station and ask the way.

Nancy Bird Walton in a vintage aircraft. Picture: Supplied

Her story began when legendary aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith was offering joy flights at Wingham in NSW, and Nancy and two friends went along for a joy ride.

In a moment of serendipitous timing, Smithy, who made the first transpacific flight from the United States to Australia, mentioned he was about to open a flying school in Sydney.

So at age 17, having saved £200 in the midst of the Great Depression, Nancy defied her father – who wanted her to help run the family’s general store – and moved to Manly and learnt to fly.

While Kingsford Smith did not approve of women flying, he respected her as a client and Nancy became one of his first students.

Nancy bought herself a Gipsy Moth for £200 from the estate of Reg Annabelm, the pilot who had taken her on her first joy flight at 15 – and had then died in the aircraft.

She and friend Peg Mackillop from her flying class billed themselves as the First Ladies’ Flying Tour and joined the barnstorming circuit, flying around to country shows selling joy rides.

Peg Mackillop (left) and Nancy Bird Walton, pictured in 1935, billed themselves as the First Ladies’ Flying Tour.

By 20, Nancy was flying for the Far West Children’s Health Scheme, ferrying a nurse to remote locations for medical clinics, improving the health of outback women and children and saving lives.

Before she reached her 21st birthday, Nancy had bought a bigger, two-passenger aircraft, and become the first woman to own and operate a commercial air service in Australia.

Nancy lived a remarkably long life for a pioneer in such a dangerous pursuit, and died aged 93 in 2009.

Listen to the interview about Nancy Bird Walton with Jim Haynes in the In Black and White podcast on iTunes, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.