On Monday, June 10, Metropolitan Airport News Editor-in-Chief Julia Lauria-Blum had the honor of representing pioneering pilot Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Cochran, who was inducted into the Long Island Aviation Hall of Fame at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York.
Jackie Cochran, one of the greatest aviators of the 20th Century, began her 40-year career earning her private pilot license at the Roosevelt School of Aviation at Roosevelt Field on Long Island in 1932 while on a three-week vacation.
Originally a beautician by trade, Jackie learned to fly during the Great Depression so that she could start her own cosmetics company and cover the territory she needed to in order to earn a living selling cosmetics.
She fell in love with air racing and entered as many races as she could in the 1930s. In 1935, she established Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics and often used her flying to promote her products. Her many races and record-breaking flights brought her widespread fame, and in 1937, Cochran was awarded the Harmon International Trophy as the outstanding woman flyer in the world, the first of six Harmons during her career. In September 1938, Jackie won the Bendix Trophy, coming in 1st place, flying a Seversky AP-7 from Burbank, California to Cleveland, Ohio.
In 1942, in the wake of the U.S. entry into World War II, Jacqueline Cochran made history once again. She founded and directed a program to train female pilots to fly U.S.A.A.F. military aircraft on the home front in order to release male pilots for overseas duty. This program, the famed Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, was a significant step in breaking gender barriers in aviation.
After the end of the war, Cochran received the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal and became a staunch advocate for a separate Air Force. In 1948, she joined the U.S.A.F. Reserve, gaining the rank of Colonel. She continued to participate in air races and establish new transcontinental and international records.
On May 18, 1953, diving at Mach 1, Jackie Cochran became the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound as pilot Chuck Yeager flew in his chase plane. In 1961, she set eight records in a T-38 Talon, and in 1964, she exceeded Mach 2, flying a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.
At the time of her death in 1980 at the age of 74, Jackie Cochran held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any other pilot in aviation history, male or female.
Julia, who, in addition to her position as editor-in-chief of Metropolitan Airport News, is the curator of the permanent WASP WWII exhibit at the American Airpower Museum in Farmingdale, New York, said during her remarks at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, “Jackie’s legacy in aviation is one of perseverance, tenacity, and spirit, and one to be remembered for generations to come, as she is today, and I am so deeply honored to stand in as her representative at her well-deserved induction into the Long Island Aviation Hall of Fame.”
