At 9:31 a.m., Jerrie Mock pointed the nose of her aircraft toward the end of the runway at Port Columbus. Alone in her plane, she took a deep breath, and pushed in the throttle. Charlie barreled down the airstrip. Fire trucks and cameramen were lined up along both sides of the runway as they rolled past. The roar of the powerful engine thrilled Jerrie as the aircraft’s wheels left the ground. The high-set wings of her plane lifted into the air and she trembled with excitement. Finally, after a lifetime of dreaming, she would see the world!
As the plane made its climb, heading east, Jerrie heard the tower controller say over the radio and the loudspeakers at the airport, “Well, I guess that’s the last we’ll hear from her.”9
Jerrie Mock couldn’t believe her ears. “I’ll be back,” she thought. “But I hope to never see him again.”10
DID YOU KNOW?
Before Wiley Post flew out of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, and became the first man to fly solo around the world, he worked as a professional pilot. Businessmen paid Wiley to fly them to their destinations. The experienced pilot earned worldwide fame with his record-breaking flight in 1933, but he already had earned worldwide fame as a race pilot competing in air derbies.
Jerrie Mock was not a professional pilot when she took off to fly around the world. She earned her private pilot’s license in 1958, and six years later, with only about 750 hours of flying time behind her, she attempted her historic flight around the world. In order to fly around the world, she needed to get certification to fly her plane using instruments only. She became an instrument-rated pilot before she left the country, but she never had the chance to practice her new skill without an instructor sitting beside her before she left on her around-the-world flight.
Wiley Post was the first man and Jerrie Mock was the first woman to fly solo around the world. By coincidence, both of them also decided to elope when it came time to marry.
FLIGHT TWO
EARLY YEARS AND CHASING DREAMS
GERALDINE “JERRIE” Fredritz grew up in the small town of Newark, Ohio. Born November 22, 1925, to Timothy and Blanche Wright Fredritz, she was the oldest of three daughters. Jerrie was seven years old when her sister Barbara Ann was born, and she was fifteen when her youngest sister Susan completed the family. Every week her family attended Sunday services at the First United Methodist Church.
While Jerrie was still a young girl, her mom gave her strict orders never to cross the busy street in front of their home. But mostly boys lived on her side of the street. One day, after she arrived with a doll in her hand, the boys told her that if she wanted to play, she had better get rid of the baby doll. Jerrie quickly gave up baby dolls for hanging with the boys. She enjoyed their adventurous games, her favorite being cowboys and Indians. Camp Fire Girls meetings gave her a chance to be one of the girls.
Jerrie’s interest in flying began at a very young age. When she was only seven years old, her mother and father took her to a small airfield near Newark, Ohio, during a local festival. The family of three climbed aboard a Ford Trimotor airplane. While in the air, Jerrie stared in amazement at the rows of rooftops, the cows in green pastures, and the tops of the trees. After the ride, she looked up at her mom and dad and said, “I love it! I’m going to be a pilot when I grow up.” Her father patted her on the head and said, “Yes, dear.”1
JERRIE’S FIRST CHILDHOOD HOME IN NEWARK, OHIO
Photograph by the author
As a small child, Jerrie didn’t know much about the world outside the little town of Newark. When her first grade teacher returned from a trip to Europe, she shared stories of the wonderful places she had been. “Most people in my town didn’t travel anywhere. I had no idea what was out there.” To quench her new thirst for adventure, Jerrie read lots of books. “I read books of all types,” she said. “About half were fiction and half nonfiction.”2 Reading books let her travel in her mind, to places she could only dream about.
JERRIE AS A YOUNG GIRL
Susan Reid collection
In the fourth grade at Roosevelt Elementary School, Jerrie dove into her geography books, excited to learn about different cultures and exotic places. In her imagination, she rode across the Sahara Desert astride a two-humped camel in a long, loose dress with a veil draped over her head. “I wanted to see the world, all of it, the jungles, the deserts, and the pyramids.”3 Whenever she heard that her hero Amelia Earhart was taking to the skies, she raced home to sit close beside the radio, keeping track of all the places Amelia visited in her plane. Jerrie wished one day to live such a fantasy life as Amelia’s, flying from country to country.
JERRIE AS A STUDENT AT WOODROW WILSON JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Susan Reid collection
Jerrie attended Woodrow Wilson Junior High School. At age eleven, she shared her dream of flying around the world with her girlfriends. They looked at her and laughed. One of Jerrie’s friends dreamed of being a housewife, with lots of children, while the other one imagined herself as a movie star.
Jerrie graduated from Newark High School, but she never participated in sports. “At barely five foot tall, no one wanted me on their team. Besides, you have to consider the time. In the 1940s, girls didn’t play many sports.”4 She played the trumpet and the French horn in the high school band, and she excelled at academics. In her senior year, she was the only girl in the advanced mathematics course. “World War II began, and advanced mathematics was offered to prepare the students to join the cause and fight the war,” she said.5
JERRIE AS A STUDENT AT NEWARK HIGH SCHOOL
Susan Reid collection
In her junior year in high school, she took math with a class of seniors. One senior in particular caught her eye. He was the new boy in town, having just moved to Ohio from Connecticut. Russell Mock lived a block away, and they rode the bus together. He sat an aisle apart from Jerrie in math class. They argued about algebra, and he boasted about flying solo in a plane at age sixteen. At first they were just good friends, but soon they dated and went to dances. On weekends they made a mad dash to nearby Buckeye Lake Park, where they rode rides at the amusement park, swam at the swimming pool, and skated at the roller rink. When it came time for the senior prom, Jerrie arrived on the arm of Russell Mock.
After high school, in September of 1943, she attended the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Jerrie was the only woman studying aeronautical engineering; she also took an advanced chemistry class. Being the only female in a class full of male students raised some eyebrows. Some classmates poked fun at her and said the only reason she was in the class was to meet a husband. When she received the only 100 percent on a difficult chemistry test, she silenced their teasing.
In 1944, a career in aviation didn’t seem realistic to Jerrie. Most girls her age were getting married and starting families. At the age of nineteen, Jerrie Fredritz dropped out of college to marry her high school sweetheart, Russell Mock. Since Jerrie didn’t want all the fuss of a big wedding, she and Russ quietly exchanged vows in a courthouse, their ceremony conducted by the justice of the peace. Within two years they had sons, Roger and Gary. Valerie, their only daughter, came along twelve years later.
Jerrie found a way to satisfy her thirst for knowledge while caring for her babies. The Ohio State University had a radio program that taught Spanish, German, and French. Jerrie recorded the radio lessons and practiced speaking foreign languages while changing diapers and rocking babies.
While living in Bexley, Ohio, Jerrie and Russ enjoyed gourmet cooking and hosting three-course dinners by candlelight. After discussing which country to visit that evening, they set the table according to the traditions of the country and created exotic dishes from that part of the world. They welcomed many foreign exchange students into their house and learned their customs and traditions. Jerrie especially loved learning about the foods their visitors ate, and how they cooked their meals.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, most women stayed at home with their children. Russ worked full-tim
e as an advertising executive, and Jerrie worked part-time at many different jobs. Since the couple shared a passion for the opera, Jerrie talked about the Metropolitan Opera on the air for a local radio station on Saturday afternoons. She also hosted a local television show on Sunday afternoons called Youth Has Its Say. Every week, she chose four students from different schools in the Columbus area. The youths debated everything from global politics to a woman’s place in the home.
JERRIE AFFECTIONATELY NAMED HER LUSCOMBE TWEETY BIRD
Courtesy of Phoenix Graphix
Jerrie and Russ purchased their first airplane in 1952, and affectionately named the 1946 Luscombe Tweety Bird. In September of 1956, Jerrie took her first solo cross-country flight, a requirement for getting a private pilot’s license. She flew her blue-and-white airplane to Kelley’s Island on Lake Erie. After a successful landing, she sat on the runway, helpless. She needed to head back to Columbus to complete her solo flight, but Tweety had no starter and no electrical system. She had to spin the plane’s propellers by hand and, being only five feet tall, it was impossible. Russ had always helped her to start the engine, and she assumed there would be someone on the island to assist her. Luckily, before the sun set, a pilot stopped by the airport, spun Tweety’s propeller, and sent her on her way.
One day, some friends invited Jerrie to join them on their Sunday morning routine of flying to an airport on the Indiana border for breakfast. Jerrie had a bad feeling and decided not to join the group of young men. During the flight, one of the planes came up behind the other and knocked its tail off. Both planes went down. No one survived. Shaken by the tragedy, Jerrie stopped flying briefly. When she resumed flying, Jerrie flew solo, renewing her permit year after year, not yet ready or willing to take passengers along. While her children were in school, Jerrie continued to take flying lessons.
A couple of years later, she decided the time had come to get a private pilot’s license. With a private pilot’s license there would be fewer restrictions than with a solo permit. She would be able to take passengers along and she could fly for longer distances. In 1958, she met all the requirements, and she passed her test to finally get her private pilot’s license. To celebrate her accomplishment, she flew her plane from Port Columbus to Newark-Heath airport and picked up two very special passengers, her mom and sister Susan. Susan’s eyes sparkled as she recalled the big day. “I still remember how exciting it was,” she said. “And I wasn’t scared at all.”6
Russ got his private pilot’s license on the same day as Jerrie. To celebrate their achievement, the couple took a vacation and flew to St. Pierre, a French island in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean near Canada. In the hotel dining room, Jerrie heard pilots communicating their positions over the Atlantic from the radio room. It sounded so exciting that she vowed to Russ that one day she would fly an airplane over the ocean.
Owing to her knowledge of airplanes and flying, Jerrie managed Price Field airport in 1961, making her the first woman to manage an airport in the state of Ohio. In 1962, Russ and Jerrie Mock, along with a friend, Alfred J. Baumeister, purchased a single-engine Cessna 180. Russ used the plane mainly for business trips, but Jerrie entered a woman’s race the same year they purchased it. Unfortunately, Jerrie came in last place. She explained, “I took a friend along and she was afraid. She had a panic attack, and I had to take her back, and let her out of the plane. She calmed down, and we took off again, but it added an extra hour to my flight.”7
One night, up to her elbows in dishwater at the kitchen sink, Jerrie complained about how bored she was being a housewife and doing the same thing over and over again, day after day. “Maybe you should get in your plane and fly around the world,” Russ said mockingly. “All right,” she responded. “I will.”8
Jerrie mentioned to Baumeister that she would like to fly the Cessna around the world. Baumeister agreed to the idea, but later admitted that he thought she was joking. But Jerrie never joked when it came to flying. She decided the odds were in her favor, and when she discovered that no woman had yet flown around the world, she set out to follow her childhood dream.
Their friend, Alfred Baumeister, was also a co-worker of Jerrie’s husband at Bell Sound. While putting in a sound system at Lockbourne Air Force Base, he met Brigadier General Dick Lassiter. He told Lassiter about Jerrie’s idea to fly around the world. Lassiter agreed to “unofficially” help her plan a route, and to get clearances when needed. In a top-secret room in the Pentagon, General Lassiter and Jerrie Mock mapped out a route around the world. Major Arthur C. Weiner of the United States Air Force also helped Jerrie by studying weather reports and drawing twenty-four flight plans for different legs of the flight. Amelia Earhart took along navigator Fred Noonan in her airplane; Jerrie Mock took along the flight plans of navigator Art Weiner.9 Some of the flight maps drawn by Major Weiner were almost ten feet in length and had to be folded accordion-style so they could be stored in the cramped cockpit.
Cablegrams were sent back and forth, asking countries to allow Jerrie to land at certain airports or air force bases. Some countries just didn’t want her. Jerrie wrote letters and visited consulates all over Washington, D.C., filling out paperwork to obtain the permissions needed to fly over and to land in the foreign countries along her route. Abdullah Hababi, from the embassy of Saudi Arabia, sent a cablegram granting permission to land as long as no “undesirable passengers” were aboard when she landed! After obtaining all the necessary permissions, Jerrie and General Lassiter discussed what equipment, and what additional emergency equipment, she would need to bring along.
While Jerrie was busy getting her paperwork in order, the family vacation plane was being transformed into a long-distance flier. With the words Spirit of Columbus emblazoned on its nose, and a shiny red-and-white paint job, Charlie looked ready to streak across the open skies. The eleven-year-old plane was renewed, inside and out. At the push of a switch, a brand new 225-horsepower engine rumbled under the cowling after being serviced by Continental Motors of Muskegon, Michigan. The engine was tested, dismantled, reassembled, and tested again four times. Jerrie flew to Fort Lauderdale for the installation of a long-range radio and then off to a Cessna service shop at the Wichita Municipal Airport in Kansas that specialized in long-distance and overseas flight preparation. Charlie was equipped with dual short-range radios, twin radio-direction finders, and other components found in larger airplanes. Massive metal gas tanks were strapped in, replacing three passenger seats. With cabin fuel tanks and wing fuel tanks, Charlie was capable of carrying 183 gallons of gas and flying 3,500 miles without a stop. Only one seat was needed. Jerrie was flying solo.
Her departure date in April 1964 was less than three months away when a National Aeronautic Association official called to tell her a pilot from California also wanted to become the first woman to fly around the world. A twenty-seven-year-old professional pilot named Joan Merriam Smith planned to follow the same route as Amelia Earhart. The NAA represents the FAI, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, in the United States. One rule of the FAI is that only one pilot at a time from each country can apply to make an attempt to set the same record. Jerrie had been planning her trip for over a year. She burst into action that same evening, and hopped on a plane bound for Washington, D.C. When the doors to the office of the NAA opened in the morning, Jerrie rushed in and registered to be the first woman to fly solo around the world.
JERRIE MOCK’S APPLICATION FOR LANDING RIGHTS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES DURING HER SOLO TRIP AROUND THE WORLD
Susan Reid collection
. . .
SINGLE-ENGINE VERSUS TWIN-ENGINE PLANES
JERRIE MOCK was asked over and over again about her choice to fly around the world in a single-engine airplane. After all, she would be traveling great distances over deserts and oceans. Jerrie explained that a single-engine plane uses less gas and can fly for a longer distance before needing to refuel. With better fuel mileage she would need to carry less fuel and her plane would be lighter. Cha
rles Lindbergh also believed a small single-engine plane was the best choice when he flew across the Atlantic Ocean. He figured that with two engines there was twice the chance of one failing. With a twin-engine plane both engines must be maintained and monitored.
Jerrie Mock explained to a Columbus Dispatch reporter:
From the point of safety it must be understood that the typical light twin is not a single-engine with a spare engine . . . it is a two-engine airplane. True, a light twin-engine airplane will maintain altitude . . . even climb modestly on one engine. But only if not heavily loaded. During much of my hops I would be in a little better shape, if any, if I were in a light twin in an engine-out condition than if I lose an engine on my 180, I’d go down.10
But to make a trip around the world, an airplane would need to be loaded with supplies and emergency equipment. At times, the plane would need to haul a full load of fuel. The average light twin-engine plane isn’t good at maintaining altitude when it’s loaded down. So, during times of engine failure Jerrie would be better off in a twin-engine plane, but at all other times the single-engine plane was the best pick.
. . .
Without an official permit, Joan Merriam Smith still wanted to be the first to complete that flight. Joan left from California on March 17 to follow Amelia Earhart’s route. That same day, Jerrie rushed to Kansas to get Charlie out of the factory to be ready for her new departure date of Thursday, March 19. What began as a leisurely trip to circle the globe suddenly became a race around the world!
The Jerrie Mock Story Page 2