Photo courtesy of "The Aglaia" of Phi Mu |
In honor of Women’s History Month, the NPC blog is
featuring biographies of Panhellenic women who have been influential historical
figures. Our final post spotlights Geraldine “Jerrie” Fredritz Mock, who was
initiated as a Phi Mu at The Ohio State University, where she studied
aeronautical engineering. The first woman to fly solo around the world, she had
always been fascinated with flying and married a pilot; her husband only
encouraged her to pursue her interest in aviation. She received her private
pilot’s license in 1958 and decided she wanted to see the world in 1964,
leaving for her worldwide flight in March that year.
Her flight set a total of seven records. Twenty-seven
years after Amelia Earhart’s mysterious disappearance, Jerrie Mock became the
first woman to fly solo around the world, the first woman to fly around the
world in a single-engine plane and the first woman to fly over both the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans. She also set a record for the fastest flight
around the world for Class C1-c aircraft, among several other records. Her
plane, the Spirit of Columbus, was re-acquired by Cessna after her flight and
was displayed at the Cessna factory until 1976, when Cessna donated it to the
Smithsonian Institute. Today, the Smithsonian displays it at the Udvar-Hazy
Center at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C.
After her record-setting flight around the world,
Mock continued to fly and set several more world records. She was presented
with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Exceptional Service Decoration in
1964 and was awarded the Louis Bleriot Silver Medal by the Féderation
Aéronatique Internationale in 1965.
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