Nancy Bird Walton, Australia’s pioneering female aviator, became the youngest woman in the British Empire to gain a commercial pilot’s licence at 19. Her passion for flying started at 13 with a joyride in a de Havilland Gipsy Moth, prompting training with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, purchase of her own plane, and barnstorming tours across New South Wales with Peggy McKillop to offer joyrides and charters that brought aviation and women pilots to rural areas. She is best known as the “Angel of the Outback” for her 1930s humanitarian flights with the Far West Children’s Health Scheme, transporting doctors, nurses, supplies, and baby health services to remote outback communities, often navigating by road maps and landing in rough paddocks, to provide life-saving care to isolated families. With remarkable courage, she broke gender barriers in aviation while revolutionising healthcare access in regional Australia.
