Tag Archives: Aviatrix

24–25 September 1938

World Record Aviators with Antonov ANT 37 Rodina
From left to right, Polina Osipenko, Valentine Grizodubova and Marina Raskova, with the record-setting Tupolev ANT-37, Rodina
Valentina Stepanovna Grizodubova (Валентина Степановна Гризодубова), 1938

24–25 September 1938: Valentina Stepanovna Grizodubova (Валентина Степановна Гризодубова), Polina Denisovna Osipenko (Полина Денисовна Осипенко) and Marina Mikailovna Raskova (Марина Mихайловна Раскова) set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Distance in a Straight Line Without Landing when they flew a twin-engine Tupolev ANT-37 named Rodina from Tchelcovo, an airport near Moscow, Russia, to the River Amgun, Khabarovsk Krai, in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The distance was 5,908.61 kilometers (3,671.44 miles).¹ The duration of the flight was 26 hours, 29 minutes.

The planned flight was from Moscow to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. In adverse weather conditions, they missed the airfield at Komsomolsk, and out of fuel, crash landed in a forest near the Sea of Okhotsk. Raskova was ordered to bail out of the airplane to avoid being injured, and she wandered for ten days before she located the crashed ANT-37. The other two remained with the ANT-37 and survived the landing. They waited by the wreck for Raskova to arrive. All three were made Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Polina Denisovna Osipenko, hero of the Soviet Union.

The three women were all highly experienced aviators and each held multiple world records. (Grizodubova held one FAI altitude record, two distance and three speed; Osipenko held three distance and three altitude records; and Raskova was a navigator on two distance record flights.)

Polina Osipenko was killed in an airplane accident in 1939. Marina Raskova died when her bomber crashed in 1943. She received the first state funeral of the war. Valentina Grizodubova survived World War II and then served on a commission investigating Nazi war crimes.  She died at Moscow in 1993.

Марина Mихайловна Раскова, 1938

The Antonov ANT-37, given the military designation DB-2, was a prototype long range medium bomber designed and built at Tupolev OKB. The design team was led by Pavel Sukhoi.

Rodina, the airplane flown by Grizodubova, Osipenko and Raskova, was the first prototype ANT-37. It had crashed during testing 20 July 1935, but was rebuilt as the ANT-37 bis, or DB-2B. The nose section was modified and the engines and propellers upgraded, all military armament was removed and larger fuel tanks installed. It was powered by two air-cooled, supercharged, 2,359.97-cubic-inch-displacement (38.67 liter) Tumansky M-86 two-row, 14-cylinder radial engines. They were rated 950 horsepower at 2,250 r.p.m. for takeoff and drove three-bladed, variable pitch propellers. (These engines were license-built versions of the Gnome et Rhône 14K Mistral Major.) The main landing gear was retracted by electric motors.

The airplane was operated by a crew of three. It was 15.00 meters (49 feet, 2.6 inches) long with a wingspan of 31.00 meters (101 feet, 8.5 inches). Its empty weight was 5,855 kilograms (12,908 pounds) and gross weight was 12,500 kilograms (27,558 pounds). The maximum speed was 300 kilometers per hour at 0 meters (186 miles per hour at Sea Level) and 342 kilometers per hour (212.5 miles per hour) at high altitude. The service ceiling was 8,000 meters (26, 247 feet).

Tupolev ANT-37 Rodina.
Tupolev ANT-37 Rodina.

Rodina was repaired and operated by Aeroflot, then, until 1943, by the People’s Commissariat of Aircraft Industry.

¹ FAI Record File Number 10444

© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes

18 September 1961

Jackie Cochran with her record-setting Northrop T-38A-30-NO Talon, 60-0551, at Edwards Air Force Base, 1961. (U.S. Air Force)
Jackie Cochran with her record-setting Northrop T-38A-30-NO Talon, 60-0551, at Edwards Air Force Base, California, 1961. (U.S. Air Force)

18 September 1961: Jackie Cochran, acting as a test pilot and consultant for Northrop Corporation, set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Distance when she flew the Northrop T-38A-30-NO Talon, 60-0551, from Palmdale, California, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a distance of 2,401.780 kilometers (1,492.397 miles).¹

Jacqueline Cochran's Diplôme de Record in teh San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives. (Bryan R. Swopes)
Jacqueline Cochran’s Diplôme de Record in the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives. (Bryan R. Swopes)

Jackie’s friend, famed Air Force test pilot Colonel Chuck Yeager, kept notes during the series of record attempts:

September 18: Jackie took off from Palmdale at 10:00 am for attempt to set records from points to points. I took off from Edwards with 275-gallon [1,041 liter] drop tanks. During climb Jackie reported rough engine and poor performance. Also the fuel flow was inoperative. Jackie returned to the field where I finally found her takeoff flaps were still down. Also her navigation lights and beacon were on. I was rather disappointed. She’s a little cocky in the airplane. She landed back there at Palmdale with 1500 pounds [680 kilograms] of fuel in each side and made a good heavy-weight landing. The aircraft refueled and another takeoff was made at 12:30 pm. Everything went smooth this flight. We ran into clouds at the edge of Utah which lasted until Cheyenne, Wyo. Clear the rest of the way. Jackie landed with 250 pounds of fuel in each side. Made a beautiful landing and turned off after a 4000 foot [1,220 meters] ground roll. Bob White returned the F-100 to Edwards.

—  Brigadier General Charles Elwood (“Chuck”) Yeager, U.S. Air Force, quoted in Jackie Cochran: An Autobiography, by Jacqueline Cochran and Maryann Bucknum Brinley, Bantam Books, New York, 1987, Pages 306.

Jackie Cochran and Chuck Yeager at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after a flight in the record-setting Northrop T-38A Talon. (U.S. Air Force)
Jackie Cochran and Chuck Yeager at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after a flight in the record-setting Northrop T-38A Talon. (U.S. Air Force) 

The Northrop T-38A Talon is a two-place, twin-engine jet trainer capable of supersonic speed. It is 46 feet, 4 inches (14.122 meters) long with a wingspan of 25 feet, 3 inches (7.696 meters) and overall height of 12 feet, 10 inches (3.912 meters). The trainer’s empty weight is 7,200 pounds (3,266 kilograms) and the maximum takeoff weight is 12,093 pounds (5,485 kilograms).

The T-38A is powered by two General Electric J85-GE-5 turbojet engines. The J85 is a single-shaft axial-flow turbojet engine with an 8-stage compressor section and 2-stage turbine. The J85-GE-5 is rated at 2,680 pounds of thrust (11.921 kilonewtons), and 3,850 pounds (17.126 kilonewtons) with afterburner. It is 108.1 inches (2.746 meters) long, 22.0 inches (0.559 meters) in diameter and weighs 584 pounds (265 kilograms).

Northrop T-38A-30-NO Talon at Edwards Air Force Base, California. (U.S. Air Force)

It has a maximum speed of Mach 1.08 (822 miles per hour, 1,323 kilometers per hour) at Sea Level. The Talon’s service ceiling of 55,000 feet (16,764 meters) and it has a maximum range of 1,093 miles (1,759 kilometers).

In production from 1961 to 1972, Northrop has produced nearly 1,200 T-38s. As of January 2014, the U.S. Air Force had 546 T-38A Talons in the active inventory. It also remains in service with the U.S. Navy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Jackie Cochran’s record-setting T-38 is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum.

Northrop T-38A Talon 60-0551, now twenty-one years old, sits on the ramp at the Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan Air Force Base, Sacramento, California, 1981. (Photograph by Gary Chambers, used with permission)
Northrop T-38A Talon 60-0551, now twenty-one years old, sits on the ramp at the Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan Air Force Base, Sacramento, California, 1981. (Photograph by Gary Chambers, used with permission)

¹ FAI Record File Number 12383

© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes

4–5 September 1936

beryl Markham stands at The entrance to the cockpit of the Percival Vega Gull, probably late August 1936.
Beryl Markham steps out of the cockpit of the Percival Vega Gull, probably late August 1936. (Library of Congress)

4–5 September 1936: At 6:50 p.m., British Summer Time, Beryl Markham departed RAF Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, aboard a turquoise blue and silver Percival P.10 Vega Gull, registration VP-KCC. Her intended destination was New York City, across the Atlantic Ocean in America.

The airplane flown by Mrs. Markham, serial number K.34, was brand-new, built for John Evans Carberry (formerly, 10th Baron Carbery) for his entry in The Schlesinger air race from London, England, to Johannesburg, South Africa. He loaned the airplane to her for the transatlantic flight on condition that she would return it to England by mid-September, in time for the start of the race.

Beryl Markham with the Percival P.10 Gull, VP-KCC. (HistoryNet)

Designed by Edgar Percival and built by Percival Aircraft Limited at Gravesend, the P.10 Vega Gull was a four-place, single engine monoplane with fixed landing gear. Known as the K-series, it was a development of the previous D-series Gull Six. The airplane was 25 feet, 6 inches (7.772 meters) long with a wingspan of 39 feet, 6 inches (12.040 meters) and height of 7 feet, 4 inches (2.235 meters). The standard airplane had an empty weight of 1,740 pounds (789.25 kilograms) and loaded weight of 3,250 pounds (1,474.2 kilograms). K.34, the airplane flown by Markham, carried two auxiliary fuel tanks in the passenger compartment, for a total capacity of 255 gallons (965.3 liters).

The Vega Gull was powered by an air-cooled, normally-aspirated, 9.186 liter (560.573-cubic-inch-displacement) de Havilland Gypsy Six I, an inverted inline six-cylinder overhead valve (OHV) engine. The engine had a compression ratio of 5.25:1. It was rated at 184 horsepower at 2,100 r.p.m., and  205 horsepower at 2,350 r.p.m. for takeoff. The direct-drive engine turned a two-bladed Ratier variable-pitch propeller. The Gypsy Six I weighed 432 pounds (196 kilograms).

The Vega Gull had a cruising speed of 150 miles per hour (241 kilometers per hour) and a maximum speed of 174 miles per hour (280 kilometers per hour). The service ceiling was 17,000 feet (5,181.6 meters). Estimated range with the auxiliary fuel tank was 3,800 miles (6,115.5 kilometers).

John E. Carberry's brand-new Percival P.10 Vega Gull, VP-KCC, Messenger, is rolled out of the Percival Aircraft Limited hangar at Gravesend.
John E. Carberry’s brand-new Percival P.10 Vega Gull, VP-KCC, The Messenger, is rolled out of the Percival Aircraft Limited hangar at Gravesend. (Unattributed)

John Carberry was a resident of Colony and Protectorate of Kenya so the new airplane received the civil registration marking, VP-KCC. It was named The Messenger.

Beryl Markham was an experienced airplane pilot who had most recently been employed as Chief Pilot, Air Cruisers Limited, owned by a French financier, François Dupré. She was certified both as a pilot and an aircraft mechanic, and had recently had her pilot’s license endorsed for “All Types.”

Percival P.10 Vega Gull K.34 VP-KCC, The Messenger. (NPR)

Mrs. Markham and the airplane were ready for the solo transoceanic flight by 1 September, but were delayed by bad weather, with worse forecast. Captain Percival had recommended that she start from RAF Abingdon because its 1 mile runway (1.6 kilometers) would give the overweight airplane a longer takeoff run.

By the 4th, however, she was impatient with waiting and decided to takeoff regardless of the weather. She arrived at the airfield at about 5:00 p.m. Her takeoff was delayed while the runway was cleared of a wrecked bomber that had been overturned by the high winds.

Because of the high winds, the Vega Gull was airborne in just 600 yards (550 meters).

Percival P.10 Vega Gull K.34, registration VP-KCC, in flight over England, sometime between 15 August–4 September 1936. (Unattributed)
Beryl Markham and the Percival P.10 Vega Gull K.34, with Kenyan civil registration VP-KCC, westbound over England, 4 September 1936. (Henry How, Daily Mirror)

From the start, Markham encountered heavy rain, low clouds, fog, and gale force winds. Almost immediately, her carefully-prepared chart was blown out of a cockpit window. She flew most of the distance at an altitude of about 2,000 feet (610 meters). If she climbed higher, the rain turned to ice. If she flew lower she was in danger of the winds forcing her into the sea below. She had hoped to have the light of a nearly full moon as she crossed the Atlantic at night but the weather was so bad that she flew by reference to her instruments for the entire crossing.

During the transatlantic flight the Percival Vega Gull was sighted by several ships which reported her position. Although the airplane had a cruising speed of 150 miles per hour (241 kilometers per hour), because of the headwinds, Markham estimated her rate of advance at just 90 miles per hour (145 kilometers per hour). With the airplane running on fuel from the final tank, which should have lasted 11 hours, the gauge indicated that it was being consumed at a higher rate. She estimated her position as nearing Newfoundland but with rain, clouds and fog, she was only able to see brief views of the ocean below.

The dawn broke through the clouds. The wind changed and I stopped being so silly. I wouldn’t have imagined that there was an expanse of desolation so big in the whole world as the waste of sky and water I saw go past me since I left Abingdon. . . It was fog, rain, sleet for hours on end. If I climbed it was sleet, if I dropped it was rain. If I skimmed the sea it was fog. I couldn’t see anything beyond my wingtips. . .

That tank, on which I was banking my all, didn’t last eleven hours. It lasted nine hours and five minutes. . . I watched that tank getting emptier and emptier and still saw nothing but sea and clouds and mist. . . I could see nothing to save me. Good old Messenger was going to stop any moment and I said to myself, “If I’m going to go, now is the time to get ready for it.” The only thing anywhere around was fog, great hefty banks of it. And then I saw the coast. The beautiful coast. I’ve never seen land so beautiful. . . But then the engine began to go “put, put, put.”

. . . I knew then that I had to come down and made for the beach. I couldn’t land there; there was nothing but great big rocks and Messenger and I would have been dashed to pieces. I went inland.

My engine was missing badly now. It was sheer agony to watch my petrol gauge . . . I peered around for a field to land on. I was still peering when the engine stopped.

 Beryl Markham, quoted in Straight on Till Morningby Mary S. Lovell, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1987, Chapter 9 at Pages 177–178.

Beryl Markham's solo transatlantic flight ended in this peat bog at Beliene, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 5 September 1936. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
Beryl Markham’s solo transatlantic flight ended in this peat bog at Baliene Cove, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, 5 September 1936. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)

The field turned out to be a peat bog at Baliene Cove on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. The airplane nosed over in the soft surface. Beryl Markham struck her head and was briefly knocked unconscious. She soon climbed out of the damaged Vega Gull and was taken to a nearby farm where help soon arrived.

Beryl Markham did not reach her intended destination of New York City. But what she did accomplish was the first East-to-West solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by a woman. Although Amelia Earhart had flown solo across the Atlantic in her Lockheed Vega four years earlier, her crossing was West-to-East. Because of the prevailing weather patterns, the westerly crossing is considered much more difficult.

Beryl and The Messenger returned to England aboard the passenger liner RMS Queen Mary. Although the damage was repaired, it was not in time to compete in The Schlesinger. John Carberry sold VP-KCC to Dar-es-Salaam Airways. It was written off in Tanganyika in August 1937, and de-registered in March 1938.

Beryl Markham was a remarkable woman whose exploits are too great to touch on here. She wrote West with the Night, which was considered by author Ernest Hemingway to be “a bloody wonderful book.” She died at her home in Nairobi, Kenya, 3 August 1986, at the age of 83.

Beryl Markham, with her forehead bandaged, after her historic solo transatlantic flight, 5 September 1936. (Boston Public Library_
Beryl Markham, with her forehead bandaged, after her historic solo transatlantic flight, 5 September 1936. (Unattributed)
Beryl Markham, with her forehead bandaged, after her historic solo transatlantic flight, 5 September 1936. (Unattributed)

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes

2 September 1910

America’s first woman airplane pilot, Blanche Stuart Scott. The aircraft is a Curtiss Model D. (George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress)

2 September 1910:¹ After receiving flight instruction from Glenn Hammond Curtiss, Miss Blanche Stuart Scott became the first woman in the United States to fly an airplane when she made a solo flight in a Curtiss biplane at Lake Keuka Field, Hammondsport, New York.

She later wrote:

It was customary in those days to have the student “cut grass” for many days, to become thoroughly familiar with the controls. As the plane was a one seater, no instructor would go along to teach the student. There was a governor on the engine to hold the power down and keep the plane on the ground. My fourth trip down the field “grass cutting” caught a side wind and the plane soared about ten feet in the air. It felt like a hundred feet. Curtiss was alarmed, because at that stage in aviation an injured or killed woman would have been the worst publicity. However, and perhaps because I didn’t know enough to be afraid, I landed safely. Two days later, I asked Curtiss to take the governor off the engine, and he finally agreed. I stepped into the little old 35 hp ship, waved a flippant good-bye and took right off, flew around the field and made a good landing. I have never found that any woman antedated that flight.

Glenn Hammond Curtiss (left) instructs Blanche Stuart Scott at the controls of a Curtiss Model D, circa 1910. (Monash University)

She became a professional exhibition pilot and worked for Curtiss as a test pilot—the first woman in that occupation. She is said to have earned as much as $5,000 per week with Curtiss, nearly $133,000 in 2018 U.S. dollars.

On 6 September 1948, Blanche Scott was the first woman to fly in a jet-powered aircraft when she rode with Major Charles E. (“Chuck”) Yeager, U.S. Air Force, in a two-place Lockheed TF-80C Shooting Star (later redesignated T-33A).

Blanche Stuart Scott (NASM)

Blanche Stuart Scott ² was born 8 April 1885 ³ at Rochester, New York. Her father was James C.S. Scott, owner of Scott’s Hoof Paste Co., Inc., of Rochester, and her mother was Belle J. Herendeen Scott. Mr. Scott died in 1904. Mrs. Scott continued to run the business.

Blanche Scott, also known as “Betty,” was educated at Vassar College, a highly-regarded residential school for women in Poughkeepsie, New York.

In April 1910, Blanche Scott was employed as an auto saleslady.

Miss Scott first gained public notice when she drove across the North American continent, departing New York City on 16 May 1910, and arriving at San Francisco, California, on 23 July. She had driven approximately 5,400 miles (8,690 kilometers) in 69 days.

Scott’s automobile was an Overland Model 38 “runabout,” named Miss Overland. It was a front-engine, rear-wheel drive car, with a water-cooled, normally-aspirated 198.804 cubic-inch-displacement Overland inline four-cylinder L-head engine with two valves per cylinder. It used a single Schebler carburetor. The engine produced 25 horsepower. The power was transmitted from a two-speed transmission by a drive shaft to the rear axle. Two wheels were equipped with manual brakes. Goodyear 32″×  3.5″ tires were used on all four wheels. The Model 38 was advertised for sale at $1,095.  (Scott was the first woman to make the transcontinental journey from east to west. The previous year, Alice Ramsey, also a Vassar alumni, drove a Maxwell touring car from San Francisco to New York, west-to-east, in 59 days.

Blanche Stuart Scott with Gertrude or Amy Philllips in a 1910 Overland Model 38 “runabout.” New York, 1910. (Spooner & Wade/Detroit Public Library

Blanche S. Scott married 32-year-old Harry Bronson Tuttle, superintendent of agencies for Willys-Overland Co., (until recently, the head of the service department of the Dayton Motor Car Company) at Detroit, Michigan, 24 October 1910.

On 1 July 1912, Mrs. Tuttle was flying for Glenn L. Martin’s exhibition team, the Martin Flying Circus, at Squantum, Massachussets, and witnessed the death of Harriet Quimby, America’s first licensed female pilot.

Her husband, Harry Tuttle, is reported to have told her, “she must choose at once and for all between him and aviation.”

There marriage soon ended.

Blanche Scott starred as “The Aviator” in “An Aviator’s Success,” and as “Bertha Monroe” in “The Aviator and the Autoist Race for a Bride.” Both silent films were produced by the Champion Film Company and released in 1912.

On Memorial Day, 26 May 1913, Blanche crashed her airplane during an exhibition at Madison, Wisconsin. There are many versions as to what occurred, and as many as to the extent of her injuries.

By 1915, Blanche Scott Tuttle was living with her mother, now running a hotel in Mentz, New York. She listed he occupation as “aviator.”

Blanche Stuart Scott flying at Dominguez Hills, California, circa 1912. (California Historical Society)

13 July 1917 Mrs. Tuttle married George K. Hennings, of Philadelphia, at Lake County, Indiana. They eventually separated and she headed west to Hollywood where she became a script writer for R.K.O. Pictures, Universal, and Warner Brothers. She was known for her witty dialogue. George Hennings died in 1941.

In 1921, Blanche Scott was the studio manager for the Hal Benedict Studios at Flushing, New York.

In 1929, the organization Early Birds of Aviation was founded. The membership was limited to pilots who had made their solo flights before 1916. Blanche Stuart was one of the original members.

1931, she joined radio station KFI in Los Angeles as a talk show host. In 1936 Scott returned to Rochester to care for her mother. She worked for several radio stations in the area.

Blanche Stuart Scott at the National Air Races, Dayton, Ohio, 1954. (Smithsonian Institution)

From 1953 to 1958, Ms. Scott was employed as a consultant by the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. She searched for items that the museum could acquire to help tell the history of early aviation.

Blanche Stuart Scott died at Genesee Hospital in Rochester, 12 January 1970. Her remains were interred at the Riverside Cemetery, Rochester, New York.

¹ The actual date of her flight is uncertain. Some sources cite 6 September, while others give a range of from 2 to 12 September.

² Blanche Stuart Scott was also known as Betty Scott, Blanche S. Tuttle and Blanche S. Hennings.

³ Various sources give Ms. Scott’s date of birth as 1880, 1884, and 1889. Social Security Administration records state 1885, which coincides with her age as listed in Federal and New York state censuses from 1900, 1905 and 1915.

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes

Jacqueline Cochran (11 May 1906–9 August 1980)

Jackie Cochran (State Archives of Florida)

9 August 1980: Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran, Colonel, United States Air Force Reserve, passed away at her home in Indio, California, at the age of 74. Jackie was truly a giant of aviation. She earned her pilot’s license in 1932 and was best of friends with Amelia Earhart. She helped found the WASPs in World War II. She was a friend and advisor to generals and presidents. Jackie was highly respected by such legendary test pilots as Fred Ascani and Chuck Yeager.

During her aviation career, Colonel Cochran won the Harmon Trophy 14 times. She set many speed, distance and altitude records. Just a few are:  Piloting a Canadair CL13 Sabre Mk 3, serial number 19200 (a license-built F-86E variant), she was the first woman to exceed the speed of sound, flying 652.337 mph on 18 May 1953. She flew the same Sabre to a world record 47,169 feet (14,377 meters). She was also the first woman to fly Mach 2, flying a record 1,400.30 miles per hour (2,300.23 kilometers per hour) in a Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, 11 May 1964.

The following is the official U.S. Air Force biography:

“Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Cochran was a leading aviatrix who promoted an independent Air Force and was the director of women’s flying training for the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots program during World War II. She held more speed, altitude and distance records than any other male or female pilot in aviation history at the time of her death.

“She was born between 1905 and 1908 in Florida. Orphaned at early age, she spent her childhood moving from one town to another with her foster family. At 13, she became a beauty operator in the salon she first cleaned. Eventually she rose to the top of her profession, owning a prestigious salon, and establishing her own cosmetics company. She learned to fly at the suggestion of her future husband, millionaire Floyd Odlum, to travel more efficiently. In 1932, she received her license after only three weeks of lessons and immediately pursued advanced instruction. Cochran set three major flying records in 1937 and won the prestigious Bendix Race in 1938.

“As a test pilot, she flew and tested the first turbo-supercharger ever installed on an aircraft engine in 1934. During the following two years, she became the first person to fly and test the forerunner to the Pratt & Whitney 1340 and 1535 engines. In 1938, she flew and tested the first wet wing ever installed on an aircraft. With Dr. Randolph Lovelace, she helped design the first oxygen mask, and then became the first person to fly above 20,000 feet wearing one.

“In 1940, she made the first flight on the Republic P-43, and recommended a longer tail wheel installation, which was later installed on all P-47 aircraft. Between 1935 and 1942, she flew many experimental flights for Sperry Corp., testing gyro instruments.

“Cochran was hooked on flying. She set three speed records, won the Clifford Burke Harmon trophy three times and set a world altitude record of 33,000 feet – all before 1940. In the year 1941, Cochran captured an aviation first when she became the first woman pilot to pilot a military bomber across the Atlantic Ocean.

“With World War II on the horizon, Cochran talked Eleanor Roosevelt into the necessity of women pilots in the coming war effort. Cochran was soon recruiting women pilots to ferry planes for the British Ferry Command, and became the first female trans-Atlantic bomber pilot. While Cochran was in Britain, another renowned female pilot, Nancy Harkness Love, suggested the establishment of a small ferrying squadron of trained female pilots. The proposal was ultimately approved. Almost simultaneously, Gen. H.H. Arnold asked Cochran to return to the U.S. to establish a program to train women to fly. In August of 1943, the two schemes merged under Cochran’s leadership. They became the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots.

“She recruited more than 1,000 Women’s Airforce Service Pilots and supervised their training and service until they were disbanded in 1944. More than 25,000 applied for training, 1,830 were accepted and 1,074 made it through a very tough program to graduation. These women flew approximately 60 million miles for the Army Air Force with only 38 fatalities, or about 1 for every 16,000 hours flown. Cochran was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for services to her country during World War II.

“She went on to be a press correspondent and was present at the surrender of Japanese General Yamashita, was the first U.S. woman to set foot in Japan after the war, and then went on to China, Russia, Germany and the Nuremburg trials. In 1948 she became a member of the independent Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in the Reserve. She had various assignments which included working on sensitive projects important to defense.

“Flying was still her passion, and with the onset of the jet age, there were new planes to fly. Access to jet aircraft was mainly restricted to military personnel, but Cochran, with the assistance of her friend Gen. Chuck Yeager, became the first woman to break the sound barrier in an F-86 Sabre Jet owned by the company in 1953, and went on to set a world speed record of 1,429 mph in 1964.

“Cochran retired from the Reserve in 1970 as a colonel. After heart problems and a pacemaker stopped her fast-flying activities at the age of 70, Cochran took up soaring. In 1971, she was named Honorary Fellow, Society of Experimental Test Pilots and inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame.

“She wrote her autobiography, The Autobiography of the Greatest Woman Pilot in Aviation History with Maryann B. Brinley (Bantam Books). After her husband died in 1976, her health deteriorated rapidly and she died Aug. 9, 1980.”

The above biography is from the web site of the United States Air Force:

http://www.af.mil/information/heritage/person.asp?dec=&pid=123006481

Jacqueline Cochran at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, 1932. (Cradle of Aviation Museum)
Jackie Cochran with her record-setting Beechcraft D17W “Staggerwing,” NR18562. (FAI)
Jacqueline (“Jackie”) Cochran (Mrs. Floyd Bostwick Odlum), with her Northrop Gamma 2G, NC13761, circa 1936. The airplane had been modified from its original configuration with the installation of a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp Jr. air-cooled radial engine. (Photographed for Vogue by Toni Frissell)
Jackie Cochran paints her race number, 13, of the fuselage of her Seversky AP-7. (Unattributed)
Jackie Cochran arriving at Cleveland, Ohio, 1 September 1938. (Eisenhower Archives)
Jackie Cochran is presented the Harmon International Aviatrix Trophy by Mrs. Franklin D.  Roosevelt. (Acme)
Jackie Cochran with her Seversky AP-7A, NX1384, prior to her speed record flight, 6 April 1940. (San Diego Air & Space Museum)
Jackie Cochran owned a successful cosmetics company. (Makeup Museum)
Jackie Cochran served with the Royal Air Force Air Transport Auxiliary, circa 1942. (U.S. Air Force)
Jacqueline Cochran, Director, Women Airforce Service Pilots. (National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, WEB13644-2013)
Miss Jackie Cochran, Director, Women Airforce Service Pilots. (NARA)
Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of a Curtiss-Wright P-40 Warhawk, circa 1943. (Wikipedia)
P-51B NX28388
Jackie Cochran and her “Lucky Strike Green” North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, NX28388, circa 1948. (Library of Congress)
Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of her North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang NX28388, , at Cleveland Municipal Airport. (Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum)
Jackie Cochran with her cobalt blue North American Aviation P-51C Mustang, N5528N, 1949. (FAI)
Jackie Cochran in cockpit of Sabre Mk.3 No. 19200 at Edwards AFB. (LIFE Magazine)
Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3, No. 19200, on Rogers Dry Lake, Edwards Air Force Base, California, May 1953. (J. R. Eyerman/LIFE Magazine)
Jackie Cochran’s image was affixed to the fuselage of her Lockheed C-60A Lodestar, N13V, during her campaign for election to the U.S. House of Representatives, March 1956. (Loomis Dean/LIFE Magazine)
Jackie Cochran is sworn in as a consultant to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by NASA Administrator James Edwin Webb, 1961. (NASA)
Jackie Cochran and Chuck Yeager are presented with the Harmon International Trophies by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. (U.S. Air Force)
Jackie Cochran with her record-setting Northrop T-38A-30-NO Talon, 60-0551, at Edwards Air Force Base, California, 1961. (U.S. Air Force)
Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of The Scarlett O’Hara, a record-setting Lockheed L-1329 JetStar, N172L, at Hanover-Langenhagen Airport, 22 April 1962. (FAI)
Jackie Cochran and Lockheed F-104G Starfighter 62-12222 at Edwards AFB, 1964. (FAI)

© 2020, Bryan R. Swopes