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. Charles 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!
DID YOU KNOW?
Orville and Wilbur Wright were credited with inventing the first airplane. On December 17, 1903,