Béatrice Vialle

Béatrice Vialle
Born	4 August 1961 Bourges, Cher (departement), France
Nationality	French
Aviation career
Known for	Only French-qualified female Concorde pilot and one of the two female Concorde operational pilots
First flight	Robin HR 100 Tiara
Famous flights	Final Air France Concorde flight, AF 4332, with fare-paying passengers on board. 31 May 2003.
Flight license	June 1984, Professional Pilot 1st Class Saint-Yan, Saône-et-Loire

Béatrice Vialle, born the 4th of August 1961 at Bourges, is a French aviator, one of the two operational female Concorde pilots and the first French female pilot on a supersonic airliner.

Biography

Graduating from École nationale de l'aviation civile (The French civil aviation university; promotion "airline transport pilot student" 1981), she started her career at Air Littoral flying an Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante. She moved to Air France in 1985 where she flew an Airbus A320 and a Boeing 747 before becoming qualified on Concorde, on the 24th of July 2000. She made her first commercial flight on the 19 November 2001 and so became one of the two female Concorde pilots (with the British Barbara Harmer) and the first French female pilot on a supersonic airliner. She made 45 supersonic flights Paris-New York and 3 trips above the Atlantic ocean in total. After the end of the Concorde flights (31 May 2003), she became Captain on the Boeing 747-400.

French Jacqueline Auriol was the first woman who flew Concorde but this was as a test pilot.

Bibliography

• Académie nationale de l'air et de l'espace, Les français du ciel, dictionnaire historique, 2005, Le Cherche midi éditeur, 782p., p. 518, VIALLE, Béatrice, ISBN 2-7491-0415-7
• Who’s Who in France, 2012, 2307 p., notice « Vialle, Béatrice », ISBN 978-2-85784-052-7