At war's end, Cochran was hired by a magazine to report on global postwar events. In this role, she witnessed Japanese
General Tomoyuki Yamashita's surrender in the
Philippines and was the first non-Japanese woman to enter Japan after the War. She also attended the
Nuremberg Trials in Germany. On September 9, 1948, Cochran joined the
U.S. Air Force Reserve as a
lieutenant colonel. She was promoted to
colonel in 1969 and retired in 1970. During her career in the Air Force Reserve, she received three awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross for various achievements from 1947 to 1964.
Flying records Postwar, Cochran began flying the new
jet aircraft, setting numerous records. She became the first woman pilot to "go
supersonic". In 1952, Cochran, at age 47, decided to challenge the world speed record for women, then held by
Jacqueline Auriol. She tried to borrow an
F-86 Sabre from the U.S. Air Force, but was refused. She was introduced to an Air Vice-Marshal of the
Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) who, with the permission of the Canadian Minister of Defence, arranged for her to borrow the sole
Canadair Sabre Mk.3. Canadair sent a 16-man support team to California for the attempt. On 18 May 1953, Cochran set a new 100 km speed record of 1,050.15 km/h (652.5 mph). Later on 3 June, she set a new 15 km closed circuit record of 1078 km/h (670 mph). Encouraged by then-Major
Chuck Yeager, with whom Cochran shared a lifelong friendship, on May 18, 1953, at Rogers Dry Lake, California, Cochran flew the Sabre 3 at an average speed of 652.337 mph. During the course of this run the Sabre went supersonic, and Cochran became the first woman to break the
sound barrier. Cochran was also the first woman to land and take off from an
aircraft carrier, the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic (in 1941) and later to fly a jet aircraft on a transatlantic flight, the first woman to make a
blind (instrument) landing, the only woman ever to be president of the
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (1958–1961), the first woman to fly a
fixed-wing, jet aircraft across the Atlantic, the first pilot to fly above 20,000 feet (6,096 m) with an oxygen mask, and the first woman to enter the Bendix Transcontinental Race. She still holds more distance and speed records than any pilot living or dead, male or female. Because of her interest in all forms of aviation, Cochran flew the
Goodyear Blimp in the early 1960s with Goodyear Blimp Captain R. W. Crosier in Akron, Ohio.
Mercury 13 In the 1960s, Cochran was a sponsor of the
Mercury 13 program, an early effort to test the ability of women to be astronauts. Thirteen women pilots passed the same preliminary tests as the male astronauts of the Mercury program before the program was cancelled. It was never a
NASA initiative, though it was spearheaded by two members of the NASA Life Sciences Committee, one of whom,
William Randolph Lovelace II, was a close friend of Cochran and her husband. Though Cochran initially supported the program, she was later responsible for delaying further phases of testing, and letters from her to members of the Navy and NASA expressing concern over whether the program was to be run properly and in accordance with NASA goals may have significantly contributed to the eventual cancellation of the program. It is generally accepted that Cochran turned against the program out of concern that she would no longer be the most prominent female aviator. On 17 and 18 July 1962,
Representative Victor Anfuso (
D-
NY) convened public hearings before a special Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics to determine whether or not the exclusion of women from the astronaut program was discriminatory, during which
John Glenn and
Scott Carpenter testified against admitting women to the astronaut program. Cochran herself argued against bringing women into the space program, saying that time was of the essence, and moving forward as planned was the only way to beat the Soviets in the
Space Race. (None of the women who had passed the tests were military jet test pilots, nor did they have engineering degrees, which were the two basic experiential qualifications for potential astronauts. Women were not allowed to be military jet test pilots at that time. On average, however, they all had more flight experience than the male astronauts.) "NASA required all astronauts to be graduates of military jet test piloting programs and have engineering degrees. In 1962, no women could meet these requirements." This ended the Mercury 13 program. However, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, who were part of the Mercury 7, also did not have engineering degrees when they were selected. Both of them were granted a degree after their flights for NASA. Significantly, the hearings investigated the possibility of
gender discrimination a full two years before the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 made that illegal. ==Political activities==