She broke the glass ceiling in America's airline industry, becoming the first female pilot to take the controls for Northwest Airlines. She's flown over 66 different types of aircraft. Thirty-thousand accident-free hours in the cockpit. And, at age 61, she has wowed airshow crowds from coast to coast, including several visits to Minter Field in Shafter. Whenever she's flying, except airshow performances, she flies with her trusty back-seater "Bernie".
"I picked him up from the pound in 2003 and he's eight years old now," said Julie Clark, airline captain, retired. "Bernie has a special place in the back of the cockpit, and even has his own set of earmuffs."
Julie Clark was bitten by the aviation bug at the age of eight, when her father, an airline pilot himself, took her up in a DC-3. "I knew then I wanted to fly as an airline pilot,not just work for an airline but to be a captain like my father," said Clark.
But, as a young teen, tragedy sent her family into a tailspin. Her mother died in a choking accident and her father in 1964, was shot and killed in the cockpit of Pacific Airlines flight 773 by a distraught passenger, the subsequent plane crash in Contra Costa County killed 44 people.
But even that tragedy couldn't keep Julie Clark out of the cockpit. In the early 70's she became one of the first women pilots to fly for a major airline. She captains Northwest Airline's DC-9s and MD-80s. "Definitely broke the glass ceiling. We had problems back then just getting hired. No one wanted to be the first airline to hire a woman back then," recalls Clark.
Julie Clark has garnered wealth of accolades in her storied career, including her induction into the Women in Aviation Hall of Fame. "I'm getting all these inductions into this hall of fame and that and it's probably because I'm getting old, ha ha," Clark chuckled.
But Clark says one thing never gets old, and that's paying tribute to our country in her airshow performances, and being an ambassador for women in aviation.
If you'd like to know more about Julie Clark, you can check out her website at
www.americanaerobatics.com.
