In 1932, a friend offered Jacqueline Cochran a ride in an aircraft. The cosmetics saleswoman took to the air as easily as a fledgling. But unlettered Cochran was terrified of written examinations. By sheer force of personality, she convinced the examiner to give her only an oral test, and got the coveted private pilot’s licence in just three weeks.

A beautician who excelled at flying. That was Jacqueline Jackie Cochran. At the moment when I paid for my first (flying) lesson a beauty operator ceased to exist and an aviator was born, she once said. During her long and eventful life she manifested an incredible drive to succeed. And succeed she did, setting more speed, altitude and distance records than any other pilot, male or female, in aviation history.

Jackie Cochran was born in Mobile, Alabama, USA on May 11, 1906. Her childhood was one of humdrum poverty. Her first marriage, before she was 15, lasted just four years. The tragic death of her five-year-old son, in a fire that he accidentally started, devastated her. She moved to New York, and worked in a fashionable salon where she soon got acquainted with the bold and the beautiful. Jackie was a woman in a hurry. In 1932, a friend offered her a ride in an aircraft. She was thrilled and immediately decided that flying and she were made for each other. At the time, she was a cosmetics saleswoman and her future second husband Floyd Odlum (reputedly one of the richest men in America) told her that flying would help her outmanoeuvre the competition. She took to the air as easily as a fledgling. But her lack of formal education left her terrified of written examinations. How then could she obtain the coveted licence? She finally convinced the examiner, by sheer force of personality, to give her only an oral test, and got her private pilot’s licence in just three weeks. It took her a year to obtain her commercial licence. Calling her line of cosmetics Wings, she flew her own aircraft around the country promoting her products.

That aviation was still very much a male dominated sphere did not daunt Jackie. If anything, she thrived in the masculine atmosphere. She flew her first major race in 1934. In 1937, she was the only woman to compete in the prestigious Bendix Trophy race, after working with Amelia Earhart to open the race for women. By 1938, she was considered the best female pilot in America. In September, she showed the full range of her abilities by winning the Bendix outright, beating all the men in the race. When World War II began, Jackie formulated a plan whereby women pilots would free a man to fight by ferrying aircraft, towing targets or flying in other non-combat capacities. She took the idea straight to the top—to Eleanor Roosevelt. With 25 handpicked female pilots, Jackie went to England, where she and her girls trained under the British Air Transport Auxiliary. They became the first American women to fly military aircraft. Following America’s entry into the War, in 1942 she became director of women’s flight training. In 1943, she became the first head of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), whose duties included military training and a variety of aviation roles beyond ferrying. However, in December 1944, the US Congress disbanded the WASPs because scores of male pilots complained they were being put out of work.

Jackie eventually became the first woman to pilot a bomber across the Atlantic and receive the Distinguished Service Medal. In 1949, she won the Harmon trophy for the outstanding woman pilot of the decade. In 1953, persuaded by close friend Chuck Yeager, she became the first woman to exceed the speed of sound, flying an F-86 Sabre jet. She was also named Associated Press Businesswoman of the Year twice in the 1950s. In 1956, she ran for the US Congress, but lost. She is the only woman to ever receive the Gold Medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Little wonder that she was the only woman ever to serve as the Fédération’s President (1958-1961). Among her last aviation feats was the establishment in 1964 of a women’s airspeed record of 1,429 mph in the F-104 Starfighter.