SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — One of the first female airline pilots in the United States and a pilot during the time of September 11, 2001 now resides in Utah and published a fiction novel based on true events of the terrorist attacks that changed the world.
‘Why are you at the airport all of your spare time?’: Born to fly
Valerie (Val) Walker, 76, took interest in flying when she was just 16 years old. She worked three jobs to pay for her flying lessons. “When I had a little time off, I got off at midnight, I’d buy some donuts and go up to the Van Nuys Tower just to be around airplanes,” she said.
Soaking in everything at her lessons, Walker would go home and get a broomstick to practice everything she learned. Only being able to afford one lesson a month, Walker said when she went the next month, her instructor would often ask if she had been taking lessons from somebody else. “I said, ‘No, sir,’” she replied.
Eventually, Walker worked for aviation magazines as an art director and later moved up to editor and managing editor and chief pilot. She was able to go up and flight test and then write about her experience. She did some flying with the Air Force to write about their T-38 and T-37 supersonic jets.
Walker also was hired by one of the first police aerial patrol companies in Los Angeles where she would fly a fixed wing aircraft to fly at night aerial patrol…