Not even Paula Tutman knew that she could fly, until one day she was reporting a story on the US Air Force Thunderbirds and someone put the controls of the F-16 Fighting Falcon into her hands.

"I pulled 9Gs without losing my lunch," she proudly says. She's quick to divulge the secret to her success: "Don't eat lunch."

Paula Tutman joined WDIV in 1992 as a general assignment reporter. She started in television news in the early 1980s as a reporter at WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., and went on to anchor and report at WLKY-TV in Louisville, Ky., and also at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Md.

Paula grew up in Mitchellville, Md., a suburb of Washington, and studied theater at Bowie State University in Bowie, Md.

She has won an Emmy, three Emmy nominations, six Associated Press awards and an Alpha Chi award for news reporting and writing.

As a local correspondent for Local 4 News Morning, Paula says what she most likes about her job is learning new things. "If it's a project that involves research or figuring out a new way to do something, I'm all in."

A fan of opera, a cyclist, novice astronomer and jewelry maker, Paula has lived in Detroit for several years "and counting."

She has a 20-year-old cat, Flayla and a 4-year-old Maltese dog, Mailliw, who is named after her father William (Mailliw is William spelled backward).

Will Paula pilot another fighter plane anytime soon? You can bet your lunch on it.

• Favorite restaurant: Bob's Pizza Palace on 7 Mile and Evergreen Road. "The broasted chicken with BBQ sauce is one of the best kept secrets in town."
• Favorite movies: "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Set It Off."
• Most embarrassing broadcast moment: "I was a cub reporter in Knoxville, Tenn., and I was doing a live shot and forgot what I was talking about. So I stared blankly into the camera for about ten seconds..which is actually an eternity (in TV time). Finally I squeezed out a couple of words, that came out something like, "umnananna?umnananna."
• Most quotable quote: "I'm basically a nosy person, and this job pays me to do what I do naturally, ask lots of questions."

Follow Paula on Twitter @ptutman.