By Julie Boatman
To fly among the many top test pilots at any stage of your profession is an honor not meted out without quite a lot of labor — proving not just one’s mettle but in addition diligence, perseverance and inner strength. Those words ring very true when speaking of Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran, one of the notable of that elite cadre.
On May 18, 1953, Cochran firmly established herself in history when she became the primary woman to fly beyond Mach 1 in level, unboosted flight.
How did she get there? Well, it’s top-of-the-line rags-to-riches stories in aviation history.
Cochran’s early days
Cochran was born on May 11, 1906, in the agricultural Florida Panhandle. She took on her first jobs to tug herself out of poverty, working in beauty shops by the point she was 11 and eventually becoming a hairdresser. Her name “Cochran” stems from her first marriage to Robert Cochran, who died in 1925. She moved to Recent York — eventually working for Saks Fifth Avenue — where she met Floyd Odlum, a wealthy businessman, within the early Nineteen Thirties, who supported her dreams to launch her own business — and to turn into a pilot.
She learned to fly in 1932 in a three-week cram session at Roosevelt Field on Long Island. From her earliest days of flying, she felt the necessity to make an excellent impression but in addition to appease tensions across the “advent” of ladies flying. For instance, Cochran’s continued use of cosmetics was one strategy to assure most people that “nothing had really modified,” in response to American Women and Flight Since 1940, by Deborah Douglas. She married Odlum in 1936.
And he or she flew — faster and faster, starting to chase speed records by the point she had a number of hundred hours under her belt. Cochran won the Bendix Transcontinental Air Race in 1938, in addition to the Harmon Trophy — bestowed upon the highest female pilot within the U.S.
By the point the U.S. entered World War II, roughly 400 women held pilot certificates within the country and were a part of The Ninety-Nines, International Women Pilots Association. In 1941, Cochran was named president of The Ninety-Nines, and with civilian aviation sharply curtailed by the war, she continued to press forward on the concept she had first presented to Eleanor Roosevelt in 1939 — that girls could readily come to the service of the country to exchange the pilot roles vacated by men who went off to fly in combat. She presented her concept in front of President Franklin Roosevelt, gaining the eye of General Henry “Hap” Arnold, the top of the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Though the thought didn’t gain traction at home, Cochran took her ideas to Great Britain, with the goal to produce female pilots to the British Air Transport Auxiliary. Nevertheless, Arnold would turn into a lifelong supporter of Cochran. From those beginnings overseas — and the efforts of fellow race pilot Nancy Harkness Love — sprang a series of female pilot participation within the war: the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), the Women’s Auxiliary Ferry Squadron (WAFS), the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) — and the one that may crown all of them, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).
Breaking the sound barrier
Cochran didn’t fly off into the sunset following the war — actually, she flew higher and faster than ever before. The ability behind the journey to her date with destiny and supersonic flight? The jet engine.
Desirous to prove herself as one the perfect pilots, period — not only the perfect female pilot — Cochran took to flying jets like one born to the breed. She worked with test pilots from the era whose names are well-known: Chuck Yeager was a mentor, together with several others. She notched many records along her quest, each for straight-line distance and in a closed circuit, by June 1953.
She was determined, nevertheless, to make sure she was the fastest woman — difficult the position held by Jacqueline Auriol of France. She succeeded — after which some. Perhaps the record she’s most known for happened on that day in May 1953 when, while flying a Canadair F-86 Sabrejet at Edwards Air Force Base, she became the primary woman to interrupt the sound barrier, with a mean speed of 652.337 mph and surpassing Mach 1.
She would go on to set other records, including a string in 1962, at age 56.
She remained energetic in each aerospace consulting and the political sphere through the remainder of her life. Cochran died on Aug. 9, 1980, in Indio, California, still the holder of more aviation records than any person — male or female.
List of notable records:
- First woman to interrupt the sound barrier.
- First woman to achieve Mach 2.
- First woman to land and take off on an aircraft carrier.
- First woman to pilot a jet aircraft on a trans-Atlantic flight.
- First woman to make a landing solely by means of instruments.
- Only woman to be president of the Fédération Aéronautique International.
- First pilot to fly above 20,000 feet with an oxygen mask.
- First woman to enter the Bendix Transcontinental Air Race.
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