Tag Archives: Department of Commerce

17 August 1932

Jacqueline Cochran at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, 1932. The airplane is a Fleet Model 2. (Cradle of Aviation Museum)

17 August 1932: For just over three weeks in the summer of 1932—23 July to 17 August—Jackie Cochran, a beautician who worked for Antoine’s salons at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City and Miami, Florida, took flying lessons from Lester Travis (“Husky”) Flewellin, chief instructor at the Roosevelt Flying School at Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York.

She made her first solo flight on 1 August, and that flight came to an abrupt end when the airplane’s engine stopped. Jackie successfully completed her first forced landing. After passing written and flight tests for the Department of Commerce, Jaqueline Cochran was issued a private pilot’s license, No. 1498.

A Roosevelt Aviation School Fleet Model 2 in the Cradle of Aviation Museum. (Ad Meskens/Wikipedia)

© 2021, Bryan R. Swopes

1 May 1930

Amelia Earhart's transport pilot license. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections )
Amelia Earhart’s Transport Pilot’s License. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections )

1 May 1930: The Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce, issues Transport Pilot’s License No. 5716 to Amelia Mary Earhart.

The certificate is in the collection of the Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections.

© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes

6 April 1927

William MacCracken’s Pilot Identification Card
United States of America Pilot License No. 1

6 April 1928: William Patterson MacCracken, Jr., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, became the first person to be issued a pilot’s license by the government of the United States. License Number 1 was a private license, signed by then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who would later become the 31st President of the United States of America.

Assistant Secretary MacCracken had offered the first pilot certificate to aviation pioneer Orville Wright, but Wright declined, as “he no longer flew and did not think he needed a Federal license to show that he had been the first man to fly.”

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes