Tag Archives: Jacqueline Cochran

24 May 1948

Aviation, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jackie Cochran with NX23888, May 1948. (FAI)
Jackie Cochran with NX28388, May 1948. (FAI)

24 May 1948: Two days after setting two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World and U.S. National Aeronautic Association speed records with her P-51B Mustang, Jackie Cochran sets two more.

Flying her “Lucky Strike Green” North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA, serial number 43-24760, civil registration NX28388, Cochran flew an average of 693.780 kilometers per hour (431.094 miles per hour) over a 1,000 kilometer (621.371 miles) closed circuit, without payload, at Santa Rosa Summit, near Indio, California.¹

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Jackie Cochran bought NX28388 from North American Aviation, Inc., 6 August 1946. Cochran also flew the green P-51B in the 1946 and 1948 Bendix Trophy Races, in which she placed 2nd and 3rd. Her Mustang was flown by Bruce Gimbel in the 1947 Bendix race, placing 4th.

The P-51B and P-51C are virtually Identical. The P-51Bs were built by North American Aviation, Inc., at Inglewood, California. P-51Cs were built at North American’s Dallas, Texas plant. They were 32 feet, 2.97 inches (9.829 meters) long, with a wingspan of 37 feet, 0.31-inch (11.282 meters) and overall height of 13 feet, 8 inches (4.167 meters) high. The fighter had an empty weight of 6,985 pounds (3,168 kilograms) and a maximum gross weight of 11,800 pounds (5,352 kilograms).

The P-51B was the first version of the North American Aviation fighter to be powered by the Merlin engine in place of the Allison V-1710. Rolls-Royce had selected the Packard Motor Car Company to build Merlin aircraft engines in the United States under license. NX28388 was powered by a Packard-built V-1650-7, serial number V332415, which was based on the Merlin 66. It was a right-hand tractor, liquid-cooled, supercharged 1,649-cubic-inch-displacement (27.04-liter), single overhead cam (SOHC) 60° V-12 engine, which produced 1,490 horsepower at Sea Level, turning 3,000 r.p.m. at 61 inches of manifold pressure (V-1650-7). (Military Power rating, 15 minute limit.) The engine drove a four-bladed Hamilton Standard Hydromatic constant-speed propeller with a diameter of 11 feet, 2 inches (3.404 meters) through a 0.479:1 gear reduction.

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Jackie Cochran’s North American Aviation P-51B Mustang, NX28388, on the flight line at the Cleveland National Air Races, 1948. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives)

The P-51B had a cruise speed of 362 miles per hour (583 kilometers per hour) and the maximum speed was 439 miles per hour (707 kilometers per hour) at 25,000 feet (7,620 meters). The service ceiling was 41,900 feet (12,771 meters). With internal fuel, the combat range was 755 miles (1,215 kilometers).

In military service, armament consisted of four Browning AN-M2 .50-caliber machine guns, mounted two in each wing, with 350 rounds per gun for the inboard guns and 280 rounds per gun for the outboard.

1,988 P-51B Mustangs were built at North American’s Inglewood, California plant and another 1,750 P-51Cs were produced at Dallas, Texas. This was nearly 23% of the total P-51 production.

Jackie Cochran's green North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, NX28388. (FAI)
Jackie Cochran’s green North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, NX28388. (FAI)

While being ferried back to the West Coast after the 1948 Bendix Trophy Race, NX28388 crashed six miles south of Sayre, Oklahoma, 8 September 1948, killing the pilot, Sampson Held. Two witnesses saw a wing come off of the Mustang, followed by an explosion.

Jackie Cochran's National Aeronautic Association Certificate of Record at the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives (© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes)
Jackie Cochran’s National Aeronautic Association Certificate of Record at the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives (© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes)

¹ FAI Record File Numbers 4473, 12148

© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes

23 May 1953

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Jackie Cochran in cockpit of the Sabre Mk.3, with Major Charles E. Yeager, U.S. Air Force
Jackie Cochran in cockpit of the Canadair Sabre Mk.3, with Major Charles E. Yeager, U.S. Air Force (Air Force Flight Test Center History Office, U.S. Air Force)

23 May 1953: At Edwards Air Force Base, California, Jackie Cochran set another Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) speed record with the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3, No. 19200. Flying over a 500-kilometer closed circuit without payload, the Orenda-powered Sabre averaged 952.032 kilometers per hour (591.565 miles per hour). ¹

The following week a morning opened up with conditions satisfactory, except for a fifteen-knot wind, and I went around the course five times for a 500-kilometer record of 590 miles per hour. The plane, without the  carrying of external tanks, had fuel for only seventeen minutes of full-power low-altitude flying, so for this longer run I had to carry the external tanks, which slowed the airplane down by about 40 miles per hour. Even so, I only had fuel for twenty-seven minutes of full-power flying, which was insufficient, so I had to make the runs pulling 94 per cent of full power rather than full power. I landed on the dry lake bed just as I did after the 100-kilometer run and again with two minutes of fuel remaining.

—The Stars at Noon, by Jacqueline Cochran, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1954, Chapter XII, at Pages 230–231.

ackie Cochran’s FAI Diplome de Record at the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives. (© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes)
Jackie Cochran’s FAI Diplôme de Record at the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives. (© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes)

During May and June 1953, Cochran, a consultant to Canadair, flew the Sabre Mk.3 to FAI records over the 15/25 kilometer straight course, the 100-kilometer closed circuit, the 500-kilometer closed circuit and to an altitude record of 14,377 meters (47,168.635 feet). She was the first woman to “break the Sound Barrier” when she flew No. 19200 to Mach 1.04.

The Canadair Sabre Mk.3 was a one-of-a-kind CL-13 Sabre (an F-86E Sabre manufactured by Canadair Ltd. under license from North American Aviation, Inc.) built to test the prototype Avro Canada Gas Turbine Division Orenda 3 engine. Modifications to the F-86 airframe were required to install the new, larger engine.

Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of the Canadair Sabre Mk.3 No. 19200 at Edwards AFB. (LIFE Magazine)

The Orenda 3 was an axial-flow turbojet engine with a 10-stage compressor, six combustion chambers and single-stage turbine. It produced 6,000 pounds of thrust (16.69 kilonewtons), a 15% improvement over the General Electric J47-GE-13 installed in the standard F-86E. The Orenda was 121.3 inches (3.081 meters) long, 42 inches (1.067 meters) in diameter and weighed 2,650 pounds (1,202 kilograms).

Canadair Ltd. was an aircraft manufacturer located at Cartierville, Montreal, Canada, owned by the American submarine builder, Electric Boat Company. Canadair also built licensed versions of the Douglas DC-4 (powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines) and the Lockheed T-33 two-place jet trainer. In 1954, the company became a part of General Dynamics.

After the speed records, No. 19200 was sent to North American Aviation for evaluation. Today, it is on static display outdoors at Wetaskiwin Regional General Airport (CEX3), Alberta, Canada.

Record-setting Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3, No. 19200 (Canadair Ltd.)

¹ FAI Record File Number 9075

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes

22 May 1948

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Jackie Cochran with her “Lucky Strike Green” North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, NX28388, circa 1948. (Library of Congress)

22 May 1948: Jackie Cochran flew her “Lucky Strike Green” North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, USAAF serial number 43-24760, civil registration NX28388, over a 2,000 kilometer (1,242.743 miles) closed circuit from Palm Springs, California, to Mesa Gigante, a point near Santa Fe, New Mexico, and return. The flight, timed by H. Dudley Wright, a representative of the National Aeronautic Association, took 2 hours, 46 minutes, 38 seconds.

According to contemporary newspaper reports, difficulties with the airplane’s oxygen system “prevented Miss Cochran from taking advantage of favorable winds at higher altitudes which might have boosted her speed.”

Her Mustang averaged 720.134 kilometers per hour (447.470 miles per hour), setting two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Records for Speed,¹ and United States National Aeronautic Association speed record for its class.

Two days later, she would set another speed record in this same P-51. While the FAI records have been superseded, the United States records still stand.

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Jackie Cochran’s “Lucky Strike Green” North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang NX28388, #13, with drop tanks, at Van Nuys Metropolitan Airport, California, August 1946. (Unattributed)

Jackie Cochran had broken the previous record, 708.592 kilometers per hour (440.299 miles per hour), which had been set by Lieutenant John J. Hancock, U.S. Air Force, with a Lockheed P-80A Shooting Star jet fighter two years earlier.² [See TDiA, 19 May 1946]

Cochran bought NX28388 from North American Aviation, Inc., 6 August 1946. Cochran also flew the green P-51B in the 1946 and 1948 Bendix Trophy Races, in which she placed 2nd and 3rd. Her Mustang was flown by Bruce Gimbel in the 1947 Bendix race, placing 4th.

Jackie Cochran's green North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, NX28388. (FAI)
Jackie Cochran’s green North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, NX28388. (FAI)

Interviewed about the new speed records, Jackie said,

“Last Saturday’s flight was for blood. I bought this P-51 two years ago and ever since have been fixing it up for the one objective of beating the Army’s jet 2,000 kilometer speed record. The Bendix Race and other flights were just incidental. . . .”

— WASP NEWSLETTER, July 1948, Volume V, Number Two, at Page 2.

Jackie Cochran’s North American Aviation P-51B Mustang, NX28388, on the flight line at the Cleveland National Air Races, 1948. (San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives)

The P-51B and P-51C are virtually Identical. The P-51Bs were built by North American Aviation, Inc., at Inglewood, California. P-51Cs were built at North American’s Dallas, Texas plant. They were 32 feet, 2.97 inches (9.829 meters) long, with a wingspan of 37 feet, 0.31-inch (11.282 meters) and overall height of 13 feet, 8 inches (4.167 meters) high. The fighter had an empty weight of 6,985 pounds (3,168 kilograms) and a maximum gross weight of 11,800 pounds (5,352 kilograms).

NX28388 n the flight line at the Cleveland National Air Races, 1948. (San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives)

The P-51B was the first version of the North American Aviation fighter to be powered by the Merlin engine in place of the Allison V-1710. Rolls-Royce had selected the Packard Motor Car Company to build Merlin aircraft engines in the United States under license. NX28388 was powered by a Packard-built V-1650-7, serial number V332415, which was based on the Merlin 66. It was a right-hand tractor, liquid-cooled, supercharged 1,649-cubic-inch-displacement (27.04-liter), single overhead cam (SOHC) 60° V-12 engine, which produced 1,490 horsepower at Sea Level, turning 3,000 r.p.m. at 61 inches of manifold pressure (V-1650-7). (Military Power rating, 15 minute limit.) The engine drove a four-bladed Hamilton Standard Hydromatic constant-speed propeller with a diameter of 11 feet, 2 inches (3.404 meters) through a 0.479:1 gear reduction.

A Packard Motor Car Company V-1650-7 Merlin V-12 aircraft engine at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. This engine weighs 1,715 pounds (778 kilograms) and produces 1,490 horsepower at 3,000 r.p.m. Packard built 55,873 of the V-1650 series engines. Continental built another 897. The cost per engine ranged from $12,548 to $17,185. (NASM)

The P-51B had a cruise speed of 362 miles per hour (583 kilometers per hour) and the maximum speed was 439 miles per hour (707 kilometers per hour) at 25,000 feet (7,620 meters). The service ceiling was 41,900 feet (12,771 meters). With internal fuel, the combat range was 755 miles (1,215 kilometers).

In military service, armament consisted of four Browning AN-M2 .50-caliber machine guns, mounted two in each wing, with 350 rounds per gun for the inboard guns and 280 rounds per gun for the outboard.

1,988 P-51B Mustangs were built at North American’s Inglewood, California plant and another 1,750 P-51Cs were produced at Dallas, Texas. This was nearly 23% of the total P-51 production.

While being ferried back to the West Coast after the 1948 Bendix Trophy Race, NX28388 crashed six miles south of Sayre, Oklahoma, 8 September 1948, killing the pilot, Sampson Held. Two witnesses saw a wing come off of the Mustang, followed by an explosion.

Jacki Cochran's National Aeronautic Association record in the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives. (Bryan R. Swopes)
Jackie Cochran’s National Aeronautic Association Certificate of Record in the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives. (© Bryan R. Swopes)

¹ FAI Record File Number  4479 and 12321

² FAI Record File Number 8941

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

18 May 1953

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Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3, No. 19200, on Rogers Dry Lake after the 100-kilometer speed run, 18 May 1953. (J.R. Eyerman/LIFE Magazine)

18 May 1953: At Edwards Air Force Base, California, Jacqueline Cochran flew the 100th Canadair Sabre—a Sabre Mk.3, serial number 19200—over a 100 kilometer closed circuit and set two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Speed Record at 1,050.18 kilometers per hour (652.55 miles per hour).¹

Jackie Cochran talked about it in her autobiography:

“. . . In those days you were clocked around pylons, with a judge and a timer at each pylon to clock you with special electronic devices and to make sure you stayed just outside the black smoke markers that rose into the sky. We’d throw a couple of tires on top of each other and then, when all was ready, start a smoky fire in the middle. Twelve towers of smoke marked the 100 kilometer for instance.

“The 100 kilometer course would take in about 63 miles. I’d have to fly only 300 feet off the ground in order for the photographic equipment to catch and record me. But there were hills to one side so I’d be skimming a little up and over them. I’d get two chances—just two—to set my record because that’s all the fuel the plane could carry. If all went well, I’d have a margin of two minutes of fuel after two complete passes. But could I hold that plane in a banked position of 30 degrees for a 63-mile circular flight and beat Colonel Ascani’s mark of 635 mph? Edwards pilots weren’t so sure. Opinions varied. And what about taking the ‘G’s I’d be experiencing in those sharp turns? One ‘G’ is the force of gravity, and the turns would offer me more than one.

Harmon Aviatrix Trophy
Harmon Aviatrix Trophy

“None of those record runs entail easy flying—100 kilometer, 15, or 3. They’re possible when you’ve been taught by the best.”

—Jackie Cochran: An Autobiography, by Jacqueline Cochran and Maryann Bucknum Brinley, Bantam Books, New York 1987, at Pages 274–275.

Part of the speed run was in excess of Mach 1. Jackie Cochran was the first woman to break the sound barrier.

Over the next two weeks, she would set three more world speed records ² and an altitude record ³ with the Canadair Sabre Mk.3. She was awarded the Harmon Trophy for 1953, her fourth.

According to the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, during her aviation career, Jackie Cochran set more speed and distance records than any other pilot.

Record-setting Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3, s/n 19200.

The Canadair Sabre Mk.3 was a one-of-a-kind CL-13 Sabre (an F-86E Sabre manufactured by Canadair Ltd. under license from North American Aviation, Inc.) built to test the prototype Avro Canada Gas Turbine Division Orenda 3 engine. Modifications to the F-86 airframe were required to install the new, larger engine.

Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3 No. 19200 in flight near Edwards Air Force Base, California, May 1953. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)

The Orenda 3 was an axial-flow turbojet engine with a 10-stage compressor, six combustion chambers and single-stage turbine. It produced 6,000 pounds of thrust (16.69 kilonewtons), a 15% improvement over the General Electric J47-GE-13 installed in the standard F-86E. The Orenda was 121.3 inches (3.081 meters) long, 42 inches (1.067 meters) in diameter and weighed 2,650 pounds (1,202 kilograms).

Canadair Ltd. was an aircraft manufacturer located at Cartierville, Montreal, Canada, owned by the American submarine builder, Electric Boat Company. Canadair also built licensed versions of the Douglas DC-4 (powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines) and the Lockheed T-33 two-place jet trainer. In 1954, the company became a part of General Dynamics.

After the speed records, No. 19200 was sent to North American Aviation for evaluation. Today, it is on static display outdoors at Wetaskiwin Regional General Airport (CEX3), Alberta, Canada.

Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of the Canadair Sabre Mk.3 No. 19200 at Edwards AFB. (LIFE Magazine)
Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of the Canadair Sabre Mk.3 at Edwards Air Force Base, California. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)

¹ FAI Record File Numbers 13039, 13040

² FAI Record File Numbers 8870, 9075, 9076

³ FAI Record File Number 12858

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

12 May 1951

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Jacqueline Auriol in the cockpit of a SNCASE Mistral, a license-built version of the de Havilland DH.100 Vampire. (Flying Review)

12 May 1951:  Mme Jacqueline Marie-Thérèse Suzanne Douet Auriol flew a Goblin-powered de Havilland DH.100 Vampire to set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world record for speed over a given distance of 100 kilometers (62.14 statute miles), averaging  818.18 km/h (505.39 m.p.h.). ¹ Mme Auriol  took off from Istres, flew to Avignon and back. She broke the existing record, 703.38 km/h (437.06 m.p.h.) set 29 December 1949 by Jacqueline Cochran of the United States with a North American Aviation P-51C Mustang. ²

The Chicago Tribune reported:

MRS. AURIOL, 33, PILOTS PLANE AT RECORD 507 MPH

Breaks Women’s Mark of Jacqueline Cochran

     ISTRES AIRFIELD, Marseilles, France, May 12—[Reuters]—Mrs. Jacqueline Auriol, daughter-in-law of the French president, Vincent Auriol, today officially smashed the American held 100 kilometer [62.5 miles] air speed record for women.

     Mrs. Auriol, blue eyed mother of two children, flew the Istres-Avignon return course at an official speed of 818.558 kilometers an hour [about 507 miles].

     Thus she broke the three year old record of Jacqueline Cochran, who flew the distance at Coachella Valley, Cal., in a P-51 Mustang, powered by a Rolls-Royce piston engine, of 469 m.p. h.

     Mrs. Auriol established the new record in a French built Vampire jet, named “Mistral” after a prevailing French wind. The ship has two British De Havilland Gobling [sic] turbo-compressors.

Trial Run Even Faster

     At a trial run this morning Mrs. Auriol went even faster, covering the course at 509½ m.p.h. After the morning test run, Mrs. Auriol said she hadn’t “pushed” he aircraft at all. The French makers claim it can reach 567 m.p.h.

     Mrs. Auriol, 33, is slim, boyish, has her hair cut short and usually wears slacks. She studied painting, but gave it up after her marriage in 1938 to Paul Auriol, private secretary to his father.

     Her face bears the marks of a flying accident in which she nearly lost her life two years ago. She was co-piloting a seaplane which crashed into the Seine.

Holds U. S. Pilot License

     She spent a year in hospital in France before going to the United States to complete her treatment, which included 22 operations. Four eight months she had to be fed artificially.

     She learned to pilot a helicopter at Buffalo, N. Y., and passed her pilot test over Niagara Falls. She learned jet piloting in a Meteor with Test Pilot Raymond Guillaume, who was present today and made a test flight over the course before her record attempt.

—Chicago Sunday Tribune, Vol. CX, No. 115, 13 May 1951, Part 1, Page 29, Column 1

For her record flight, Mme Auriol was named Chevalier de la légion d’honneur. Harry S. Truman, President of the United States, presented her with the Harmon International Aviatrix Trophy.

A SNCASE DH.100 Vampire. National Archives at College Park, National Archives Identifier 19982005)
A SNCASE-built DH.100 Vampire. (National Archives at College Park, National Archives Identifier 19982005)

The DH.100 was a single-seat, single-engine fighter powered by a turbojet engine. The twin tail boom configuration of the airplane was intended to allow a short exhaust tract for the engine, reducing power loss in the early jet engines available at the time.

Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du Sud-Est (SNCASE) assembled knocked-down kits of de Havilland DH.100 Vampires before entering into licensed manufacture of its own SE.530 Mistral.

The fighter variant, the DH.100 F1, was armed with four 20 mm guns.

Cutaway illustration of the Halford H.1B Goblin turbojet engine. (Flight)

The Goblin is a linear descendant of the early Whittle units. It comprises a single-sided centrifugal compressor delivering air to sixteen combustion chambers grouped symmetrically around the axis of the unit and leading to the nozzle of the single-stage axial turbine which drives the compressor. Compressor impeller and turbine rotor are coupled by a tubular shaft to form a single rotating assembly which is mounted on only two ball bearings. The maximum diameters of the engine, around the compressor casing, is 50in., [1.27 meters] and with a jet pipe of minimum length fitted the overall length is about 8ft. [2.438 meters] Equipped with a jet pipe and all the necessary engine auxiliaries the dry weight of the complete unit is 1,500 lb. [680 kilograms] Fuel consumption is at the rate of 1.23 lb. / hr. per lb. thrust.

—FLIGHT and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER, No. 1923. Vol. XLVIII. Thursday, 1 November 1945 at Page 472, Column 2

The Vampire entered service with the Royal Air Force in 1945 and remained a front-line fighter until 1953. 3,268 DH.100s were built. The SE.530 Mistral served with the Armée de l’air from 1952 to 1961. SNCASE had assembled 67 Vampire FB Mk 5 kits and built 120 SE.530 Mistrals.

¹ FAI Record File Number 10834

² FAI Record File Number 12462

© 2023, Bryan R. Swopes