Julie E. Clark (born June 27, 1948) is a retired American aerobatic air show aviator and commercial

airline pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

. She started her commercial flying career with

Golden West Airlines Golden West Airlines was a commuter airline that operated flights on a high volume schedule in California. It ceased operations in 1983. History The original Golden West Airlines, headquartered at Van Nuys, California, was founded in 1968 a ...

as a first officer and ended it in 2003 as a

Northwest Airlines Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines ...

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the famil ...

Captain. She was one of the first female pilots to work for a major airline, and has been voted as "Performer of the Year" several times for her air show performances.Pioneers

Career

Clark has more than 50 years of flight experience, 41 years as a solo aerobatic-air show pilot as of October 19, 2019,
and 30,000 accident-free hours to her name (34,000 hours as of October 19, 2019). She flew an average of 20 air shows a year in her

Juice Plus Juice Plus is a branded line of dietary supplements. It is produced by Natural Alternatives International of San Marcos, California, for National Safety Associates (NSA; Collierville, Tennessee). Introduced in 1993, the supplements are distri ...

-sponsored

Beechcraft T-34 Mentor The Beechcraft T-34 Mentor is an American propeller-driven, single-engined, military trainer aircraft derived from the Beechcraft Model 35 Bonanza. The earlier versions of the T-34, dating from around the late 1940s to the 1950s, were piston ...

, and is rated in more than 66 types of aircraft. She is an enshrined member of the

Living Legends of Aviation The Living Legends of Aviation is an award honoring achievements in the aerospace industry, bestowed by the 130 current title holders and owned and produced by the Kiddie Hawk Air Academy, a non-profit 501(c)(3). The Living Legends have all made ...

. Clark received her pilot certificate in 1969 in San Carlos, California. She performed in the same plane from 1977 until 2019, a T-34 Mentor that she bought for $18,000 in Anchorage, Alaska. She named the plane ''Free Spirit'', which went to the

Hiller Aviation Museum The Hiller Aviation Museum is an aircraft history museum located at the San Carlos Airport in San Carlos, California. The museum was founded by Stanley Hiller in June 1998. and is endowed by members of the Hiller family. It specializes in Nor ...

when she retired. While at the 2019

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (formerly the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In), or just Oshkosh, is an annual air show and gathering of aviation enthusiasts held each summer at Wittman Regional Airport and adjacent Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsi ...

air show, Clark announced her plans to retire, with her last performance on November 7, 2019 at

Nellis Air Force Base Nellis Air Force Base ("Nellis" colloq.) is a United States Air Force installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exercises such as Green Flag-West flown in " Military ...

. In December 2018, she received the Sword of Excellence from the International Council of Air Shows, and in 2019, the Federal Aviation Administration's

Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award The Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award was instituted by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on October 11, 2003, to recognize pilots who have practiced safe flight operations continuously for 50 or more years during the course o ...

Family

Clark's father, Captain Ernest Clark, was also an airline pilot. He was murdered in 1964 by a suicidal passenger on

Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 was a Fairchild F27A Friendship airliner that crashed on May 7, 1964, near Danville, California, a suburb east of Oakland. The Thursday morning crash was most likely the first instance in the United States of an airl ...

. All crew and passengers were killed as a result of the passenger shooting both pilots, then himself, causing the plane to crash. Her mother's death just a year earlier, and her father's subsequent death, increased her determination to fly.Rees, Brenda
"With the Kids: Highlights are her career; Julie Clark, joining the show at Edwards Air Force Base, has been pulling stunts for 20 years.
''Los Angeles Times'', 2005. Retrieved: May 22, 2009.

References

External links

News

Display

Julie Clark Airshows

Biography from ''Airport Journals''

Video of Julie Clark performing in her T-34
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Julie 1948 births Living people Aerobatic pilots Aviators from California Commercial aviators American women commercial aviators People from Hayward, California 21st-century American women