Jackie Cochran and the orphan from Muscogee who became the fastest woman alive

Jackie Cochran — born without a birth certificate, raised in foster care, working twelve-hour shifts in a cotton mill by age eight — became the most accomplished female pilot in the history of powered flight. She broke the sound barrier, won the Bendix Trophy, directed the Women Airforce Service Pilots program during World War II, and set more speed, altitude, and distance records than any pilot, male or female, of her era.

How Did Jackie Cochran Learn to Fly?

Cochran didn’t see an airplane up close until her twenties. She had already clawed her way out of poverty in northwest Florida’s sawmill country, first as a hairdresser, then as a successful cosmetics saleswoman. At a dinner party in 1932, industrialist Floyd Bostwick Odlum — one of the wealthiest men in America — suggested she learn to fly to cover sales territory faster.

She walked into Roosevelt Field on Long Island the following week and signed up for lessons. She soloed in three days. Her instructor later said he’d never seen anything like it. Within two years she held a commercial license and was entering air races. Within three, she was competing in the Bendix Trophy, the most prestigious cross-country race in the country.

Winning the Bendix Trophy

Cochran’s first Bendix attempt came in 1935, flying a Granville Brothers Gee Bee Q.E.D. Engine trouble forced her down in Arizona, but she had announced her presence among the nation’s top racing pilots.

By 1938, she won the Bendix outright, flying a Seversky P-35 pursuit plane from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio. She beat every male pilot in the field. This was an era when women couldn’t serve in the military and in most states couldn’t get a bank loan without a husband’s co-signature.

She and Floyd Odlum eventually married, becoming one of the most powerful couples in the country. But Cochran was never a socialite playing at aviation. She was a dead-serious pilot who happened to know powerful people — and she used every one of those connections to push aviation forward.

How Did Jackie Cochran Create the WASP Program?

When war broke out in Europe, Cochran saw what was coming before most of Washington’s military leadership. She went directly to her friend Eleanor Roosevelt and told the First Lady that America would need women pilots — not someday, but immediately.

In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, Cochran flew a Hudson bomber across the Atlantic to England, becoming one of the first women to ferry a military aircraft over the ocean. She then helped organize American women pilots to ferry aircraft for the Royal Air Force through the Air Transport Auxiliary.

After Pearl Harbor, she returned to the United States with a proposal to train women pilots for military service at home, freeing male pilots for combat overseas. The resistance was enormous. Generals said it couldn’t be done. Congressmen said women didn’t belong in military cockpits. Male ferry pilots threatened to refuse to fly alongside women.

Cochran pressed her case with General Hap Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces. In 1943, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program was established, with Cochran as director.

What Did the WASPs Actually Fly?

Over the next two years, more than 1,000 women earned their wings through the WASP program. They flew every aircraft in the Army Air Forces inventory: B-17 Flying Fortresses, B-26 Marauders (nicknamed “the Widowmaker”), P-51 Mustangs, and P-47 Thunderbolts. They ferried new aircraft from factories to bases across the country and towed targets for aerial gunnery practice — meaning male gunners fired live ammunition at targets these women dragged behind their planes.

Thirty-eight WASP pilots were killed in service. When the program was disbanded in December 1944, those women received no military benefits, no veteran status, and no GI Bill access. They were thanked and sent home. It took more than three decades before Congress granted the WASPs full military veteran status in 1977. Cochran fought for that recognition every year in between. The WASPs finally received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010, thirty years after her death.

How Did Jackie Cochran Break the Sound Barrier?

After the war, Cochran turned to pure speed. On May 18, 1953, at Edwards Air Force Base, she climbed into a Canadian-built F-86 Sabre jet. Her friend Chuck Yeager — the man who had broken the sound barrier six years earlier — coached her through the program and flew chase plane.

Cochran pushed the Sabre past Mach 1 and became the first woman to break the sound barrier. She was approximately 47 years old.

What Speed Records Did Jackie Cochran Set?

Over the following eleven years, Cochran set more speed records than any pilot in history. She set altitude records, distance records, and speed records over specific courses. At one point, she held more simultaneous aviation records than any living person on Earth.

In 1961, she set eight new world speed records in a single year. In 1964, at age 58, she flew a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to over 1,300 miles per hour — more than twice the speed of sound.

Chuck Yeager, not a man given to easy praise, called her the greatest woman pilot who ever lived.

Why Isn’t Jackie Cochran Better Known?

Cochran’s list of firsts is staggering. She was the first woman to land and take off from an aircraft carrier, the first woman to make a blind instrument landing, and the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic. She received the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the French Legion of Honor.

She was also demanding — sometimes impossibly so. The WASPs who trained under her knew that Cochran expected perfection because the world was looking for any excuse to say women didn’t belong in the cockpit. Every failure would be used against every woman who came after her. That pressure made her fierce, and some found her difficult. But no one who knew her ever questioned that she was one of the finest pilots to ever strap into an airplane.

Cochran died in 1980 in Indio, California, not far from the desert where she’d broken the sound barrier. She was approximately 74 years old — no one ever knew for certain, since no birth certificate existed for the barefoot girl from the Florida panhandle who chose her own name and then outflew just about everyone she ever went up against.

Key Takeaways

• Jackie Cochran rose from extreme poverty — orphaned, uneducated, working in a cotton mill at age eight — to become the most decorated female pilot in aviation history.
• She directed the WASP program, which trained over 1,000 women to fly every aircraft in the Army Air Forces inventory during World War II, and fought for decades to secure their veteran status.
• She was the first woman to break the sound barrier in 1953, and by 1964 was flying faster than twice the speed of sound at age 58.
• She held more simultaneous aviation records — speed, altitude, and distance — than any living person at the peak of her career.
• Her legacy shaped military and civilian aviation for women, even though full recognition of the WASPs she championed didn’t arrive until decades after her death.