Cochran, Jacqueline

Cochran, Jacqueline

(born 1910?, Pensacola, Fla., U.S.—died Aug. 9, 1980, Indio, Calif.) U.S. aviator. Orphaned early and reared in poverty, she had learned to fly by 1932, partly to promote the products of the cosmetics company she had founded. In 1938 she set a speed record for women flying across North America. In World War II she trained women transport pilots in the British and later the U.S. Air Force auxiliaries. In 1953 she broke the world speed record (for both men and women) in a jet, and in 1961 she became the first woman to fly at twice the speed of sound.

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Cochran, Jacqueline (1910–80) aviator; born in Pensacola, Fla. An orphan, her first career was as an owner of a profitable cosmetics company. Receiving her pilot's license in 1932, she was the first woman to fly in the Bendix transcontinental race three years later. She won the Bendix Trophy in 1938. The first woman to pilot a bomber across the Atlantic in World War II, she directed the Women's Air Force Service Pilots. In 1953 she became the first woman to fly faster than sound; in 1964 she flew faster than twice the speed of sound. At her death she held more flight records than any other pilot.