Jackie Cochran broke the sound barrier on May 18, 1953, and she set a record for women’s absolute speed of 652.337 mph
A jet sped through the desert close to Edwards Air Force Base on August 24, 1961. Fast aircraft were commonplace over Southern California, but female pilots were unique. Jacqueline Cochran was sitting in the T-38 Talon, Northrop’s new two-seat, twin-engine supersonic trainer. The 55-year-old pilot, according to the Smithsonian Magazine, was on a mission to restore her title as the fastest woman alive.
Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran was a US aviator from 1906 to 1980. In 1932, she took up flying in part to advance her cosmetics company. She had started after growing up as an orphan and living in poverty. In 1938, she broke the previous speed record for female pilots traveling across North America. During World War Two, she taught female transport pilots in the British and then the US Air Force auxiliary.
During World War II, Cochran served as the first commander of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment, and she was instrumental in the advancement of female positions throughout the Army Air Forces. She set the male and female combined jet speed records in 1953.
She broke the sound barrier for the first time on May 18, 1953, and set a women’s absolute speed record of 652.337 mph in the same Canadian F-86 with Maj. Chuck Yeager piloting the chase plane, according to a post posted on Edwards Air Force Base’s Facebook page. But, Jacqueline Auriol, a French test pilot, quickly surpassed her record by 63 miles per hour.
Could the T-38 help the seasoned racer get it back?
The T-38, created to train a new generation of pilots, was brand-new when Cochran persuaded Northrop to lend her one. Yeager had been her wingman that day in August 1961 when she averaged 844.20 miles per hour over a straightaway, breaking Auriol’s record by 129 miles per hour. Yeager had been training her on it for several weeks before to her record attempts. Over the following seven weeks, Cochran broke seven additional records in the Talon, including two for speed over 100-kilometer closed courses and absolute altitude at 56,071 feet. Yeager subsequently said of that accomplishment, “She flew one of the most perfect runs that has ever been flown.”
She continued to break numerous female flying records, many of them at Edwards AFB, where she was given the women’s Harmon Trophy in 1953.
Jacqueline Cochran achieved Mach 2.16 on May 11, 1964, at Edwards AFB in California while piloting a Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, 62-12222, over a straight 15 to 25-kilometer track. She established a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Speed Record and was the first woman to fly faster than Mach 2.
In her autobiography, Jackie Cochran recalled flying the 15/25-kilometer straight course as follows:
“Picture in your mind a rectangular tunnel, 300 feet high, a quarter of a mile wide, and extending 20 miles long through the air at an altitude of 35,000 feet. I had to fly through that tunnel at top speed without touching a side. There were no walls to see but radar and ground instruments let me know my mistakes immediately. Up there at 35,000 feet, the temperature would be about 45 degrees below zero. Not pleasant but perfect for what I was doing”.
“Inside the plane, you are hot because of the friction of speeding through the air like that. The cockpit was air-conditioned, but when you descend, things happen so fast the plane’s air-cooling system can’t keep up with it. I was always hot and perspiring back on the ground”.
Jackie Cochran: An Autobiography, by Jacqueline Cochran and Maryann Bucknum Brinley, Bantam Books, New York 1987, Page 314.
In May and June 1964, Cochran used this F-104G to achieve three-speed records. According to This Day in Aviation, the US Air Force handed it to the Republic of China Air Force under the Military Assistance Program, where it was given the number 4322. On July 17, 1981, it crashed.
She had more speed, altitude, and distance records at the time of her passing than any other pilot, male or female.
H/T Earl Belz
Photo by: U.S. Air Force