After learning to fly at 17 in the 1930s, Nancy Bird Walton operated an air ambulance service in outback NSW while still in her teens which meant landing in paddocks and on unsealed roads.

She was the first pupil of aviation great Charles Kingsford Smith when he founded a flying school in 1933 but was so short she needed two cushions to see out of the cockpit and reach the foot pedals.

The first woman to gain a commercial pilot's licence in Australia, she was named a Living National Treasure in 1997.

Ms Walton went on to pioneer an air ambulance service for outback NSW.

AUSTRALIA'S MOST FAMOUS WOMAN PILOT

- Nancy Bird Walton was one of the first Australian women to gain a commercial pilot's licence in the 1930s.

- She signed up for Kingsford Smith's new flying school, when the aerodrome was "just a paddock'', at the age of 17 in 1933.

- She flew with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

- She broke numerous records before founding the Australian Women Pilots' Association in 1950.

- She was a commandant of the Women's Air Training Corps and during World War II taught women morse code, engine maintenance and parachute folding.

- Qantas last year named its new Airbus A380 after the veteran aviatrix.