Jacqueline Auriol

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Jacqueline Auriol (1969)

Jacqueline Marie-Thérèse Suzanne Auriol-Douet (born November 5, 1917 in Challans ; † February 11, 2000 in Paris ) was a French pilot who broke the sound barrier as the first European and was called the "fastest woman in the world" several times.

Life

Jacqueline Douet was born as the daughter of the timber merchant Pierre Douet in Challans and studied at the Blanche de Castille in Nantes , then at the Paris Collège Notre Dame de Sion . She studied art at the École de Louvre in Paris.

She met Paul Auriol (1918-1992), the son of the future French President Vincent Auriol , through family contacts. But the families did not want a marriage and separated the two for the time being. At the age of 20 she finally married Paul Auriol in February 1938. She had two children with him, Jean-Paul and Jean-Claude.

She worked as the President's press secretary, Jacqueline was mainly responsible for representative tasks. She was not busy with these tasks.

After a flight in 1947 with the French aviator Raymond Guillaume , she decided to learn to fly herself. Her husband, also an aviator, was enthusiastic about the idea and supported it wherever he could. But it was only after her father-in-law gave her written consent that Guillaume gave her aerobatic lessons. Between 1948 and 1954 Jacqueline Auriol acquired six pilot certificates for all aircraft types , the sailing and the art ticket .

Soon she worked as a test pilot and flew in a squadron with 20 aerial acrobats at air shows. In July 1949 she gave an aerobatic performance in Paris in front of around 30,000 people. Because of her courage, she was nicknamed La Lionne 'the lioness' . Just three days later, she crashed as a copilot on a seaplane . She survived with severe injuries and burns including multiple fractures of the skull and jaw. She underwent 22 operations over the next two years.

Tied to the bed and disfigured by her burns, Jacqueline Auriol studied aeronautics , algebra and trigonometry for the license as a military pilot, which she acquired in 1950. Immediately after the last plastic surgery in the USA, she graduated as a helicopter pilot in 1951 . During her stay in the US, she met the then “fastest woman in the world”, Jackie Cochran , and they became good friends, but later competitors. On May 13, 1951, she took Cochran's speed record for the first time: With a jet fighter of the “ Vampire ” type , she reached a speed of 818.181 km / h in Paris.

In September 1952 she received the French Cross of the Legion of Honor for “outstanding flying achievements” and two months later Harry S. Truman gave her the International Hermon Trophy . In December of the same year, she set another world record for women when she flew an average speed of 856 km / h on a “Mistral” between Avignon and Istres .

On August 3, 1953, Jacqueline Auriol became the first European to reach supersonic speed , just under three months after Cochran had succeeded. With a jet fighter of the type " Dassault Mystère IV " she broke the sound barrier and reached 1195 km / h. Another record followed in June 1955, when she flew 1200 km / h in a “Mystère IV”, relegating Jackie Cochran to the ranks again. In 1959, 1963, 1963 and 1964 she set further world speed records, the fastest was 2150 km / h in a “ Mirage III ”. She has not surpassed Cochran's last record.

In total, Jacqueline Auriol completed over 4,000 flight hours. She was a test pilot for Mistral , Dassault Mystère IV and Dassault Mirage .

She died in her Paris apartment in 2000 at the age of 82.

Records

She was one of the first people to fly the speed of sound.

  • 1952 fastest woman in the world at 534.375 mph in a Mistral jet

literature

  • Jacqueline Auriol: Vivre et voler. Flammarion, Paris 1968, OCLC 416483557 .
    • I live to fly. Translated from the French by Pamela Swinglehurst. Dutton, New York, N.Y. 1970, ISBN 0-525-13076-4 .

Movie

Web links

Commons : Jacqueline Auriol  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Probst : Jacqueline Auriol. She was the first European to break the sound barrier. GRIN-Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 3-656-86075-0 , p. 6.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Ernst Probst: Queens of the skies in France. Biographies of famous female pilots, balloonists and aeronauts. GRIN-Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-640-67151-9 , p. 9.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Joyce Duncan: Ahead of Their Time. A Biographical Dictionary of Risk-Taking Women. Greenwood Press, Westport CT 2002, ISBN 0-313-31660-0 , p. 29.
  4. ↑ a b c Heidrun Moser (Red.): French Atlantic coast. From the Loire estuary to the Gironde. Travel-House-Media, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8342-8975-9 , p. 188.
  5. ^ Gene Nora Jessen: The Powder Puff Derby of 1929. The first all women's transcontinental air race. Sourcebooks, Naperville IL 2002, ISBN 1-57071-769-9 , p. 280.
  6. ↑ Joyce Spring: The sky's the limit. Canadian women bush pilots. Dundurn Press, Toronto 2006, ISBN 1-897045-16-6 , p. 84.
personal data
SURNAME Auriol, Jacqueline
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Auriol-Douet, Jacqueline Marie-Thérèse Suzanne (full name); La Lionne (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French pilot, the first European to break the sound barrier, "fastest woman in the world"
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Challans
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 2000
Place of death Paris