Jackie Cochran: from barefoot mill girl to aviation's all-time record holder

Executive overview

Jackie Cochran grew up without shoes, parents, or schooling in rural Florida, foraging for food and working cotton mills as a child. Through sheer will, salesmanship, and an obsessive drive to reach the top of every field she entered, she became the most decorated pilot in history — male or female.

She learned to fly in her mid-twenties, built a cosmetics company, founded the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) in World War Two, and broke the sound barrier near age 60. Her operating principle never changed: aim for the top, refuse to quit, and treat self-belief as a tool.

The world is malleable to anyone who pursues what they want with total energy and refuses to accept no as a final answer.

Childhood: poverty as fuel

• No shoes until age eight; bed was a pallet or bare floor; dresses made from flour sacks
• Foster family never adopted her; she chose her own surname — "Cochran" — because she had none
• Chose not to open sealed letters revealing her real parents: "What could the knowledge have added to my life?"
• Teacher Miss Boswick was the first person to show her love and tell her the wider world was available to her
• Working 12-hour days at age ~15 for six cents an hour; money meant freedom, not things
• "They could laugh, but most of my mill friends wanted as little from life as they were destined to get"
• Poverty gave her a "cocky confidence" — she could never have so little that she hadn't had less

Early career: hairdressing to New York

• Moved wherever better opportunities appeared; started at the bottom of each new job, aimed for the top
• Became a perm-machine expert at ~15, relocated to Montgomery alone, knocked on doors in the best neighbourhood until someone rented her a room
• Made more on commission than the store manager was comfortable with; bought and repaired her own Model T Ford
• Tried to get a job at Charles of the Ritz by announcing she was better than the owner; turned down his counteroffer out of stubbornness — he called back the next morning and gave her every demand
• Met wealthy industrialist Floyd Oldham (Atlas Corporation, General Dynamics, RKO) while commuting between New York and Miami salons; they married and remained partners for 40 years

Learning to fly

• Scraped together ~$400 for flying lessons during a three-week vacation; told her instructor she'd have her licence in three weeks — he laughed
• Solo'd after 48 hours in the cockpit; received her pilot's licence in 1932 after three weeks of instruction
• Could barely read or write at the time; took the test orally
• Flew into a severe storm near Montreal early on and realised ignorance could kill her — committed to learning everything about the aircraft and the air
• Simultaneously launched Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics, using her aviation profile to land her first department-store accounts

World War Two and the WASP programme

• Ferried a B-17 bomber to Britain to prove women could handle heavy aircraft — had to hand controls to a male co-pilot for takeoff and landing due to opposition from male ferry pilots
• Observed British women ferry pilots firsthand, then returned to the US to build the same programme
• Given orders by General Arnold to train 5,000 women; ultimately trained ~1,000 WASP pilots who freed male pilots for combat
• Fought constant bureaucratic resistance and sexism; described by colleagues as "a steel railroad going down the side of a track"
• On VE Day entered Hitler's bunker; on VJ Day watched the surrender on the USS Missouri

Record-setting jet career and philosophy

• Became the first woman to break the sound barrier, with Chuck Yeager as her mentor — "the greatest thrill of my life"
• Was still setting speed and altitude records at nearly 60 years old
• Held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any pilot in history at the time of her death; 14-time Harmon Trophy winner
• When doctors banned her from flying due to heart trouble and seizures, she applied for a soaring permit so she could still be in the air
• "To live without risk for me would have been tantamount to death"
• "My horizons were limited only by my imagination and knowledge"
• "I have found adventure in flying, in world travel, in business and even close at hand. Adventure is a state of mind and spirit."