2004-8-17
VOICE ONE:
This is Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Faith Lapidus with
EXPLORATIONS, in VOA Special English. Today, we tell about American
pilot Jacqueline Cochran. During her time as a pilot, she set more
speed, distance and altitude records than any other pilot in
aviation history.
VOICE ONE:
Jacqueline Cochran was known as Jackie. She said she was born in
Nineteen-Ten. She did not really know. Her parents died when she was
a baby. Another man and woman adopted her. They became her legal
parents.
These people were very poor. They lived in several towns in
Florida and Georgia. Jackie went to school for just two years. Then
she began work in a cotton factory. She was eight years old. She
earned six cents an hour.
VOICE TWO:
Later, Jackie studied to be a nurse. But, she decided to be a
beautician, a person who cuts and fixes other people's hair. She
went to a special school and worked in several beauty shops in the
South. Then, she decided to move to New York City. There she worked
in a very fine beauty shop. On a business trip, she met a wealthy
financial expert, Floyd Odlum (ODE-lum). He urged Jackie to learn to
fly. He also helped her establish what was to become a very
successful business.
Jackie had dreamed of selling her own beauty products. At that
time, the United States was in severe economic trouble, the Great
Depression. Floyd told Jackie it would be very difficult to sell
enough beauty products to make her company successful. She would
have to sell them all across America. To cover the territory, he
said, she would need wings. She thought it was a great idea.
VOICE ONE:
Years later, Jackie Cochran remembered how she talked with her
friends about learning to fly. They all warned her how difficult it
would be. She did not think so. So she went to Roosevelt Field on
New York's Long Island to learn how.
After two-and-a-half weeks of lessons, she received her official
pilot's license. She immediately flew to Montreal, Canada. The year
was Nineteen-Thirty-Two. Three years later, she competed in the
Bendix Trophy Race from Los Angeles, California to Cleveland, Ohio.
The race was an important competition for both male and female
pilots. In her first try, Cochran had trouble with her plane. She
failed to finish. Another young female pilot, Amelia Earhart,
finished fifth.
VOICE TWO:
In Nineteen-Thirty-Six, Jackie and Floyd were married. She
continued to operate her company, Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics. And
he continued to support her flying activities.
In Nineteen-Thirty-Seven, Amelia Earhart attempted to fly around
the world. She disappeared during that flight. A group of female
pilots held a memorial ceremony to honor her. Jackie Cochran spoke
at the ceremony. "We can mourn her loss," Cochran said, "but not
regret her effort. We will carry on her goals."
VOICE ONE:
A month after Earhart was declared lost at sea, Cochran flew
again in the Bendix Trophy Race. She was the only female pilot. She
finished in third place, ahead of several of America's toughest male
pilots.
The winner of that race flew a new kind of military plane. It was
designed by Alexander de Seversky. He had come to the United States
from Russia. Seversky wanted to sell his new long-distance plane to
the United States Army Air Corps. He thought the army would notice
his plane if a female pilot flew it in a race and did well. So he
asked Cochran to fly it in the next Bendix race. She accepted
immediately.
VOICE TWO:
Seversky added extra fuel
containers in the wings. He wanted to show that the plane could fly
long distances without stopping. Cochran would be the first pilot to
use the new system. Twenty-one pilots flew a test course before the
race. Only ten completed it successfully -- nine men and Jackie
Cochran.
The race began in Burbank, California, in the middle of the
night. Forty-thousand people were there to watch. Seversky's plane,
with Cochran at the controls, speeded down the runway. Its silver
wings and body shone in the lights around the airfield. The plane
lifted off the runway, climbed up and disappeared into the darkness.
VOICE ONE:
Another crowd was waiting in Cleveland, Ohio. They cheered as the
first plane landed and crossed the finish line. It was the silver
plane flown by Jackie Cochran. She had won the race. Cochran had
flown three-thousand-two-hundred-seventy kilometers in eight hours
and ten minutes. She had done it without stopping. But only she knew
there was enough fuel left to fly just a few more minutes.
Jackie Cochran won something else that year -- recognition. She
received the Harmon Trophy, the highest award given to a pilot in
America. She would win the Harmon Trophy thirteen more times.
VOICE TWO:
The next year, Nineteen-Thirty-Nine, World War Two started in
Europe. Cochran believed female pilots could help in the war effort.
She thought they should be permitted to fly military transport
planes. In that way, she said, more male pilots would be free to fly
combat planes.
In Nineteen-Forty, she tried to get the United States Army Air
Force to support her idea. Cochran wrote to President Franklin
Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor. She said the real problem in wartime was
likely to be a lack of trained pilots. Many women, she noted,
already were trained.
VOICE ONE:
Cochran received permission to go to England to observe female
pilots in the newly formed British Air Transport Auxiliary. She
stayed there several years.
By Nineteen-Forty-Three, the United States realized that it did
need more pilots. The commander of America's Army Air Forces,
General Henry Arnold, visited England. He asked Cochran to come home
and organize a program for female pilots. The group would be known
as the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.
The group existed for two years. During that brief time, the
women learned to fly seventy-seven kinds of military planes.
One-thousand seventy-four women served as WASPs. They flew almost
one-hundred-million kilometers. They were never officially part of
the Army Air Forces. They were considered civilian employees.
VOICE TWO:
At the end of World War Two, the American government gave Jackie
Cochran the Distinguished Service Medal for organizing the WASPs.
She was the first civilian to receive the honor.After the war, she
worked with General Arnold. She helped write a bill that created
America's Air Force Reserve. She became the first female member. She
was finally a member of the military.
VOICE ONE:
In the late Nineteen-Forties,
Cochran started racing again. She set many more flying records. In
Nineteen-Fifty-Four, she entered the jet age. The Canadian
government agreed to let her test its new fighter plane. In it, she
became the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound.
In the early Nineteen-Sixties, she became a test pilot for the
Lockheed Company. She flew a fighter plane
two-thousand-two-hundred-eighty-six kilometers an hour. That was
more than two times the speed of sound. It was the fastest speed
ever reached by a female pilot.
VOICE TWO:
Jackie Cochran sold her beauty products company in
Nineteen-Sixty-Four. She died of a heart attack in Nineteen-Eighty.
At the time of her death, she held more speed, distance and altitude
records than any other pilot -- man or woman -- in aviation history.
She had risen from a lowly beginning to the heights of business and
flight.
Jackie Cochran is not as well known as some of the other great
pilots. One history expert said people respected her, but did not
really like her. She led the way for other female pilots. But she
did not seek their company as friends.
Jackie Cochran felt very much at home in the sky. She once
described her feelings about flying. This is what she said:
"Earth-bound souls know only that underside of the atmosphere in
which they live. But go up higher, and the sky turns dark. High up
enough, and one can see the stars at noon. I have. I have traveled
with the wind and the stars."
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano. It was
produced by Mario Ritter. This is Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Faith Lapidus. Listen again next week for another
EXPLORATIONS program in VOA Special English.