25 Facts About Jerrie Cobb

Geraldyn M Cobb, commonly known as Jerrie Cobb, was an American pilot and aviator.

Jerrie Cobb was part of the Mercury 13, a group of women who underwent physiological screening tests at the same time as the original Mercury Seven astronauts, and was the first to complete each of the tests.

From birth, Jerrie Cobb was on the move, as is common for many children of military families.

Weeks after she was born, Jerrie Cobb's family moved to Washington, DC, where her grandfather, Ulysses Stevens Stone, was serving in the United States House of Representatives.

Once the United States became involved in World War II, Jerrie Cobb's family moved , this time to Wichita Falls, Texas, where Jerrie Cobb's father joined his active US National Guard unit.

The family later moved again to Denver, Colorado, before finally returning to Oklahoma after World War II, where Jerrie Cobb spent the majority of her childhood in Ponca City.

Jerrie Cobb first flew at age twelve, in her father's open cockpit 1936 Waco biplane.

Jerrie Cobb received her commercial pilot's license a year later, on her 18th birthday.

In 1948, Jerrie Cobb attended Oklahoma College for Women for a year.

Jerrie Cobb went on to earn her multi-engine, instrument, flight instructor, and ground instructor ratings, as well as her airline transport license.

When Jerrie Cobb became the first woman to fly in the 1959 Paris Air Show, the world's largest air exposition, her fellow pilots named her Pilot of the Year and awarded her the Amelia Earhart Gold Medal of Achievement.

Jerrie Cobb played women's softball for money on a semi-professional team, the Oklahoma City Queens, to save up to buy a surplus World War II Fairchild PT-23 so that she could be self-employed.

Jerrie Cobb was one of the few female executives in aviation.

American Airlines had no female pilots so, in an attempt to win over passengers, the airline invited Jerrie Cobb to fly the aircraft on a highly publicized four-hour test, her first turboprop flight.

At the time, Jerrie Cobb had flown 64 types of propeller aircraft, but had made only one flight in a jet fighter, in the back seat.

In 1962, Jerrie Cobb was called to testify before a Congressional hearing, the Special Subcommittee on the Selection of Astronauts, about female astronauts.

Jerrie Cobb "pioneered new air routes across the hazardous Andes Mountains and Amazon rain forests, using self-drawn maps that guided her over uncharted territory larger than the United States".

Jerrie Cobb has been honored by the Brazilian, Colombian, Ecuadorian, French, and Peruvian governments.

Jerrie Cobb believed that it was necessary to send an aged woman on a space flight as well, to determine whether the same effects witnessed in men would be witnessed in women.

At 67, Jerrie Cobb, who had passed the same tests as John Glenn, petitioned NASA for the chance to participate in such a space flight, but NASA stated "it had no plans to involve additional senior citizens in upcoming launches".

Many aviators and astronauts of the time believed that was a failed chance for NASA to right a wrong they had committed years before, but Jerrie Cobb never reached her ultimate goal of space flight.

Jerrie Cobb received numerous aviation honors, including the Harmon Trophy and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale's Gold Wings Award.

On March 18,2019, thirteen days after her 88th birthday, Jerrie Cobb died at her home in Florida.

Jerrie Cobb is portrayed by Mamie Gummer in the 2020 Disney+ series The Right Stuff.

Jerrie Cobb is the main character in a 2023 book by Mary Haverstick titled "A Woman I Know: Female Spies, Double Identities, and a New Story of the Kennedy Assassination".