Fighting for Space

by Amy Shira Teitel

  “Wanna get in our pool? We’re betting on the number of parts you’re gonna have left over when you try to put it all together again.”

  “Hey, Jerrie, is it true that you’re going to paint the fuselage with pink polka dots?”

  “Need some hairpins from the tool shed, Miss Cobb?”

  When she finished, she christened the plane “Par-a-dice Lost,” a reference to her love of literature and a nod to the role of chance in her life. She also took immense pride in not having a single part of the instrument panel left over.

  Chapter 10

  Portugal, May 17, 1951

  “The splendid French flying woman did not beat my record, which I obtained with a plane of a different type.” Jackie only half believed the official statement she was giving to the media. She was traveling again, this time in Portugal, when she heard the news that Jacqueline Auriol had secured a new speed record of 509.245 miles per hour on a 100-kilometer closed course.

  The 100-kilometer closed course was one of the many Fédération Aéronautique Internationale records that pilots could try for. Like with all distance records, the stipulation was that the course be a closed loop—she could fly in a circle, there and back between two points, or any other shape, so long as she passed over preselected checkpoints. Four years earlier Jackie had set the world speed record for the closed 100-kilometer course in a propeller plane, flying at 469.549 miles per hour. So it was true that the “splendid French flying woman” had not beaten her exact record, but Jacqueline had nevertheless outstripped Jackie, not because she was a superior flyer but because she’d been flying a jet.

  Eleven years Jackie’s junior, Jacqueline Auriol was a socialite and daughter-in-law of France’s president, Vincent Auriol, making her as well connected to France’s upper echelons as Jackie was in the United States. Jacqueline also shared Jackie’s indomitable spirit; she was back in a cockpit just two years after a crash that had left her needing twenty-two plastic surgeries to regain any semblance of her previous self. Both women were strikingly beautiful, and they were also a match in flying talent. The rivalry between the two Jackies was a friendly one, but that didn’t stop Jackie Cochran from wanting to reclaim the title of fastest woman on Earth.

  Keeping a brave face to the media, Jackie poured out her frustrations in a letter to Floyd, whose own busy schedule and worsening arthritis prevented him from flying out to meet her. Instead, he sent a letter that was waiting for her when she arrived in Madrid days later, suggesting a few ways she might take back the speed record from “the French girl.” He first suggested she talk to Hoyt Vandenberg, the Air Force chief of staff who also happened to be one of their close friends. She was still on part-time active service with the air force, though women were barred from flying, so he suggested she ask to fly a military jet under the guise of gathering data on how women reacted to jet flight. Another route might be through their good friend Randy Lovelace, who would almost certainly be interested in gathering data on women flying jets; perhaps he could initiate a new research program and hire her as the test pilot. If all else failed, Floyd suggested she could maybe borrow an F-86 jet directly from the manufacturer, Canadair. “So all that remains,” Floyd closed the letter, “is to tell you that I love you very much, I miss you, I wish I were there with you, and I hope you are well and happy.”

  Floyd’s suggestions were easier said than done. Jackie started with the most direct solution and talked to Hoyt Vandenberg. Ideally, she wanted to fly a military jet at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where all the hottest test pilots regularly broke records. It was where her friend Chuck Yeager had broken the sound barrier. But this was a nonstarter. As much as Hoyt admired Jackie, his hands were tied. He couldn’t give her permission to fly a jet while denying the same clearance to other women in the reserves. This meant that flying under a medical program with Randy wouldn’t work, either.

  An American plane out of reach, Floyd stepped in to help her get a Canadian plane. The US Air Force was flying F-86s, an aircraft manufactured under license from the North American Company by Canada’s preeminent airplane manufacturer, Canadair, which was itself controlled by General Dynamics. Floyd owned no part of General Dynamics, but he was on the boards of both the Atlas Corporation and Consolidated Vultee Aircraft, and that gave him leverage in the aviation industry. He sold 17 percent of Atlas’s holdings in Convair to John Jay Hopkins, the chairman of the board of General Dynamics, who replaced Floyd as chairman at Convair in the deal. Though there was no official mention of her name, the deal also stipulated that Jackie be hired as a flight consultant on General Dynamics’ advisory board, which meant Canadair gained a new test pilot. Floyd effectively bought Jackie clearance to fly an F-86 Sabre fitted with a Canadian-made A. V. Roe Orenda engine that could push it to Mach 1. And because the F-86 Sabre was being built for the US Air Force, Jackie was cleared to fly it at Edwards. The arrangement, convoluted though it was, worked for everyone, most of all Jackie.

  The last piece of the puzzle was for the Canadian government to okay the transfer of an F-86 to California for a flight test. In the meantime, Jackie started planning her jet flying lessons. She knew this was a whole new kind of flying. Everything happened faster in a jet. The engine reacted differently, and the stresses on her body would be like nothing she’d ever experienced. Even with all her years of propeller flying, all her records and all her awards, she still couldn’t just hop into a jet cockpit and fly. It was a high-speed environment that brought as much risk as reward. “Before I fly the Canadair jet for a record, I will need some time in a T-33,” she wrote in a personal and confidential memo to Hoyt Vandenberg. She knew test pilots at Edwards who were keen to help, she reminded him, and Randy would be using her data to learn how women fared in high-speed flight conditions. “Remember,” she said in closing, “the day may come when you will suddenly need a lot of women for operational flights of jets and won’t have any background data.”

  * * *

  “I’m not here to talk about my private life.” It was close to midnight in early February 1952. Jackie was in a nightclub giving an interview to radio personality Barry Gray, and they were supposed to be talking about Ike Eisenhower, the man the Republican Party hoped would run for president.

  The United States was at war again. American soldiers in South Korea were fighting the Soviet-backed North Koreans in an effort to stop the spread of communism. Unsuccessful peace talks did little but damage Democratic President Truman’s reputation, and the Republican Party was planning to use the president’s flagging approval rating to retake the White House in the 1952 presidential election. What the GOP needed was a candidate, and it set its sights on Ike Eisenhower. Ike, however, from his home in Paris where he was commanding NATO forces in Europe, had not declared his candidacy. He maintained he was too busy or else referenced an army regulation that said a serviceman may accept a nomination for public office but couldn’t solicit it. In truth, he was nervous. He was a career army man, and one of four men in America’s history to earn the rank of five-star general. Losing the election could mean putting his military career on the line. On the other hand, Ike couldn’t deny the allure of the country’s most powerful office.

  The Citizens for Eisenhower movement thus took up the task of showing Ike just how much his country needed him, and this grassroots mission to revitalize the Republican Party had sought Jackie’s help. The party’s finance committee chairman, John Hay “Jock” Whitney, knew Jackie had some interest in politics and had offered her the chance to test the waters by helping radio entertainer Tex McCrary and his wife, Jinx Falkenburg, put on a rally for Eisenhower at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Her celebrity could prove useful in drawing attention—not to mention she and Floyd were friends with the Eisenhowers and had money that the campaign badly needed.

  “I know. We just want a little bit, honey, just a little…” Barry Gray’s condescending tone irked Jackie, especially since she was there to talk about Ike, not herself.

 
; “Well, honey,” Jackie replied, patronizing him right back, “if I’m going to do that I’m going to get paid for it. Come on.”

  “May I ask what business you’re in?” Barry switched back to an air of politeness.

  “Well, I have a very large business. Plug. All right,” Jackie gave in, frustrated but keen to get the conversation moving. “I own Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics, I own Charbert, Nina Ricci, a luggage company, a moving picture exchange for foreign distribution, and I’ve built it up on my own and it’s a pretty good sized company employing some seven or eight hundred people, and I’ve never shouted about it, so you wanted a plug, so you have it. And I still started working in a beauty shop.” Jackie’s empire was indeed growing. The Jacqueline Cochran Personal Analysis Chart was a staple in department stores, helping women find their ideal cosmetic routine that almost always included her signature lotion, Flowing Velvet. Her name appeared in Vogue as often as it did in any flying magazine.

  “That’s wonderful,” Barry said.

  “That is America,” Jackie replied, earning a round of applause from the audience.

  “And you don’t even look like a pilot.”

  “When they say, ‘you don’t look like a pilot,’ what are people supposed to look like?” Jackie’s frustration intensified. “I think that Miss Cochran, Jacqueline Cochran, looks like an intelligent gal who can fly a plane and do anything else that she made up her mind to do.”

  As the interview came to a close, Jinx told Barry and his listeners that Jackie would be flying footage from the rally over to Ike in Europe.

  “I don’t know how I’m mixed up in this thing,” Jackie said with mock humility, “but I’m very proud to be along.”

  The next night, Friday, February 8, the Citizens for Eisenhower moved into Madison Square Garden as a prizefight was wrapping up. They had hoped boxing fans might linger and grow their number, but they needn’t have worried. Though no political heavyweights or professional organizers were involved, the crowd still swelled to more than 15,000 people, so far over the Garden’s capacity that people spilled out into the street. It was a mix of new voters, established voters, Republican and Democrat voters, all of whom wanted to see Eisenhower become president. Before the assembled masses, Jackie took the microphone. “I am for Dwight D. Eisenhower because this nation never needed an experienced pilot at the controls more than it does now. As a candidate he would not divide this nation, he would unite us. He would be a president of all the people.” This wasn’t pandering. Jackie truly believed that her friend could be the next Abraham Lincoln.

  The following Tuesday, Jackie met with Ike at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe building in Paris. Sitting in the projection room, she told him she was carrying a message from the common people of America that was of the utmost importance to the country. Then she played him the reel. By all accounts, the rally had been an unprofessional mess. Critics had gone so far as to suggest Jackie dump the footage into the Atlantic to spare Ike the shame of seeing such a poorly organized event put on in his name. But detractors hadn’t taken the emotional element into account. Jackie watched Ike watching the film reel and saw tears roll silently down his face. She knew how deeply he was touched by the raw outpouring of support from his fellow Americans.

  Days later, Ike Eisenhower announced he would run as a Republican if nominated, and the Democratic Party asked Jackie if she would be interested in running for Congress. She had to decline. Politically, she and Floyd agreed they were Republicans, and after publicly backing Eisenhower she couldn’t very well run for the opposing party. Not to mention she was preparing for the 100-kilometer closed-course speed record and had no intention of putting that on the back burner. Instead, she threw herself into the Eisenhower campaign. At Ike’s behest, Jackie proudly stood on stage alongside his wife, Mamie, and a handful of others as he accepted the presidential nomination. Throughout the year she flew around the country appearing at events on his behalf. She and Floyd were at the Ranch on election night, following the news broadcasts as their friend was elected president.

  A little over two weeks after the election, Jackie got the news she’d been waiting for: the minister of defense in Canada and the chief of the air staff in the United States both approved her contract with Canadair, which meant she was officially cleared to fly the F-86 Sabre jet at Edwards Air Force Base. She had three months beginning on March 10, 1953, to make a series of test flights for Canadair to check the stability, control, airspeed calibration, and static thrust of the plane before it would be sent back to the manufacturer. That was also her window to secure the 100-kilometer closed-course speed record. But there was something else. With a jet, she could take on a speed record no woman had achieved: flying faster than sound. It was time to go back out west to learn to fly a high-performance jet.

  * * *

  “If you want to fly this program you’re going to be on time!” Just past six o’clock in the morning, Chuck Yeager’s furious voice echoed down the hallway at Edwards Air Force Base. “You’ve got fifteen people out here working at four in the morning to preflight your airplane and get your gear ready while you, a single pilot, can’t get here on time. Look at the man time you’ve already wasted for the air force, not to mention the guys who are busting their tails for you.”

  Jackie knew Chuck was right to be angry. He wasn’t some race official she needed to keep waiting while she touched up her lipstick in a power play. In the seven years since their first meeting, Chuck had become one of her closest friends and something of an adopted son to her and Floyd. He and his wife, Glennis, were frequent guests at the Ranch. Theirs was a relationship based on mutual respect and adoration, neither of which she’d shown that morning. Nor had she shown that courtesy to Floyd, who had paid to have her insured in the Sabre, and paid the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale to send representatives to verify her record attempts. He was also paying Chuck $1,20015 a month to take a leave of absence from the air force for her benefit with a promised $50016 bonus for every record she broke including the sound barrier as well as covering any incidental costs.

  Jackie had to admit she’d been cavalier and that Chuck had been right to put her in her place. She vowed to take their lessons more seriously, and by the end of 1952 had made fifty-six successful jet flights in a Lockheed T-33 without another episode of tardiness. With every flight, she grew more comfortable with the controls and the speed of jet flying, and both student and teacher learned to trust each other in this high-speed, high-risk environment. Chuck had one cardinal rule: “If I tell you to do something, you do it immediately and don’t ask why.” He drilled it into her head until he was confident that she would push the plane until it melted if that’s what he asked from her, and she knew to trust his judgment.

  The media, on the other hand, was far less celebratory about Jackie’s progress. Once the story of a woman flying at Edwards got out, rumors swirled about Floyd’s finagling to get his wife in a jet, leading many journalists to dismiss her project as little more than vanity. Some men within the air force were unhappy to learn that a woman had clearance to fly a jet, a sentiment that in turn caused the Canadian government to consider withdrawing its consent for Jackie’s test flying; its relationship with the US Air Force was more important than her contract. Canadair stepped in to suggest playing up the angle that Jackie’s flight was a joint Canadian-American effort to secure a speed record away from France, but the media persisted with a negative slant. Stories insinuated that the air force was embarrassed by Jackie selfishly taking up flying time at a military base or else frustrated that a Canadair test program was being done on American soil when it could just as well be flown in Canadian airspace. But the people who mattered and supported Jackie put these rumors to rest. Air Secretary Thomas Finletter affirmed the air force had no objections to the Canadair flights at Edwards or with Jackie serving as the pilot, and Chuck assured her she was getting sufficiently adept at jet flying that she was likely to break both the s
ound barrier and the 100-kilometer speed record. Jackie knew the rumors were unfounded attempts to damage her reputation. She also knew Chuck wouldn’t lie to her, he wouldn’t tell her she was ready to fly if she wasn’t, though his support brought an incredible amount of pressure. She had to succeed, or it would fall back on him as her instructor.

  Jackie’s stress evaporated when the Sabre finally arrived at Edwards in March of 1953, starting a ninety-day countdown before it had to be back in Canada. She had three months to fly the jet as much as she could on any kind of record-breaking flight she wanted. The pressure was on for her to make the most of the opportunity, especially as new reports had surfaced saying a British woman was eyeing the sound barrier as well. Jackie wasn’t about to lose that race. She moved into the Yeagers’ house to be closer to Edwards, and Chuck moved into officers’ quarters on base. Glennis Yeager, who had never been as close to Jackie as her husband was, vacated to the Cochran-Odlum Ranch.

  On the morning of May 12, Jackie donned a pressure suit. Rubber tubing woven throughout the garment pressed on her legs and abdomen, ready to expand at altitude to stop the blood rushing from her head and causing a loss of consciousness. Her blond hair was tucked neatly inside a white knit brimmed hat with a black pom-pom on the top. The Sabre fitted with the Orenda engine sat waiting for her on the tarmac. She checked out the plane, then exchanged her knit cap for a helmet with “Jacqueline” curving over the straight and bold “Cochran” on the front. At long last, she climbed into the cockpit of the Sabre. She rolled down the runway and took off through clear skies with Chuck flying close behind her.