Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock touched down in her Cessna 180 at Port Columbus Airport in Ohio, on April 17, 1964, completing the first round-the-world solo flight by a woman. Having departed on March 19, she accomplished her 23,103 mile (37,180 kilometer) journey in 29 days, 11 hours, and 59 minutes.
Sixty years later, the Museum continues to honor Jerrie Mock with the display of her Cessna 180 Spirit of Columbus in the Thomas W. Haas We All Fly gallery at our building in Washington, DC. Skimming over our heads, Mock’s 1953 taildragger (small back wheel) is one of the early stars of this venerable single-engine airplane line that continues in production today as the Cessna Skylane (nosewheel gear). Countless pilots have enjoyed the same reliable and rugged flying qualities that served Mock well.
In addition to the aircraft display, the Museum honors Mock fittingly on April 17, 2024, with Jerrie Mock: Charting New Horizons in Aviation History for the Next Generation, an Aviation Adventures Lecture Series program sponsored by GE Aerospace. The program features two women who knew Jerrie well: graphic designer Wendy Hollinger and 2017 solo round-the-world pilot Shaesta Waiz.
Fellow Ohioan Hollinger and her partner Dale Ratcliff spent hours helping Mock sort through her archives and carefully selecting photographs and paperwork to best match the written prose of Mock’s 1970 book Three Eight Charlie for an illustrated reprint. (2014, 2022). The nickname Three Eight Charlie refers to the aircraft’s registration number N1538C, with Charlie being the aviation alphabet code word for C.
Inspired by Mock’s accomplishment, Waiz sought her out and received warm enthusiasm which she infused into her own 2017 solo world flight (at the time the youngest woman to do so in a single engine aircraft). Mock, in turn, admired Waiz’s own dedication to become an Afghan-American aviator. The intersection of these three remarkable women will be an intriguing program.
Twenty-seven years separated Amelia Earhart’s tragic 1937 world flight attempt and Mock’s 1964 success. In the last 60 years, at least 10 more women have completed solo world flights, most recently Zara Rutherford in 2022 (she was briefly the youngest person and as of now remains the youngest woman to complete the flight). And although each one has benefited from incrementally improving technology, any world flight remains a significant challenge.
Each of these aviators have followed their own vision. Mock’s childhood dream, sparked by magazines and paper maps rather than today’s internet, was to see the world. While a far cry from the average pilot of the era (defined as a male weighing 180 pounds), the petite Jerrie Mock was not your average suburban mother of three either—to be honest, she was bored. After earning her pilot license at age 32, Mock accumulated 750 hours of flight time and then enthusiastically replied “Why not?” when her husband half-jokingly suggested she make a world flight. They contacted the FAA for the international flying rules in January 1963 and learned no woman had made a solo world flight. Mock earned her instrument flight rating and prepared her route with help from her Air Force friends, making sure she would exceed the required official distance for a round-the-world flight of 22,858.8 miles (36,787.559 kilometers).
Then, weeks before Mock’s planned spring 1964 departure, the National Aviation Association (NAA) informed her that a second woman had filed for a world flight. Joan Merriam Smith would depart in a twin-engine Piper Apache in mid-March. Both had submitted paperwork to acquire the exclusive sanction to set a women’s around the world speed record, but the NAA designated Mock as the official pilot because her paperwork had been fully submitted first. Though neither woman called it a race, Mock moved up her departure from April 1 to March 19, two days after Smith. In any event, whomever returned first would undoubtably get more public recognition.
With a kiss to her husband and children, the “flying housewife,” who forsook her slacks for a more diplomatic drip-dry skirt and sweater set and looking all the while as a woman off to bridge club, departed Port Columbus Airport in Ohio. Eastbound in Charlie, she dueled with a suspiciously disconnected radio wire enroute to Bermuda, icing over the Atlantic, and sandstorms along the African coast. She inadvertently landed at Inchas Air Force Base in Egypt to be met by armed soldiers. Perhaps a male pilot would have been detained, but the bewildered soldiers kindly pointed out nearby Cairo International Airport and quietly cleared her for the short hop over. In Egypt she crossed off one life goal—seeing the pyramids.
Mock’s reception at Dhahran Airport in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was also startling. The waiting crowd of men had cheered as she emerged from her aircraft, but then looked puzzled. Soon, one of them dashed forward to look into the cockpit. She recalled, “His white-kaffiyeh-covered head nodded vehemently, and he shouted to the throng that there was no man. This brought a rousing ovation.”
Diplomats, military officials, and local aero clubs often greeted her (and Smith as well), but Mock could find her own way around a town. She relished the dramatic cultural changes in food and dress and became keenly aware of the near total absence of American-type general aviation —instead finding that controlled airspace and airports meant red-tape, delays, and outlays of cash. As she flew over Vietnam on a 13-hour flight from Bangkok to Manila, she noted: "Somewhere not far away a war was being fought, but from the sky above, all looked peaceful."
With her four long Pacific Ocean flights still ahead, Mock was pleased to have Charlie serviced by an actual Cessna repair shop in Manila, Philippines. There she also learned that Smith’s flight appeared to no longer be a factor.
Mock’s husband and the press eagerly followed Smith’s progress too. But in fact, the two women had very different visions and plans. Mock would reasonably surpass the official NAA world flight distance requirement. Smith, whose flight experience included the All Woman’s International Air Race, had dreamed of recreating Earhart’s intended equatorial route since earning her pilot’s license at age 17. Starting at Oakland, California, she flew to Miami, Florida, and south to Suriname where her Apache suffered a lengthy fuel tank repair. She then flew on to Natal, Brazil, and east over the south Atlantic to Dakar, Senegal. A variety of aircraft and weather issues alternately delayed each woman’s progress, but Smith was flying a longer route. As Mock departed Manila, Philippines, for Guam on April 9, Smith was in the Mideast flying from Yemen to Pakistan.
Naturally, the press wanted to talk about Earhart’s catastrophic loss over the Pacific Ocean. Smith shared her thoughts as she faced her own flight from Lae, New Guinea, north to Guam on April 22 (instead of east to uninhabited Howland Island). Mock had little to say. Both women flew with confidence because they had proper communications equipment and training. Mock continued on without a hitch except for missing a celebratory luau in Hawaii—canceled by her overzealous husband who thought she would need the rest. On April 14, she flew the final, and longest, ocean leg of 2,409 miles (3877 km) from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California.
Three days later, on April 17, the hometown crowd cheered as she landed back in Columbus. The National Aeronautic Association and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale certified the flight as a round-the-world speed record for Class C1-c aircraft (weighing less than 3,585 pounds (1,626 kg)), and, by default, a women’s speed record around the world. Mock set a total of seven records including first woman to fly across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. On May 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson presented Mock with the Federal Aviation Agency's Gold Medal for Exceptional Service. She later set several more speed records flying a Cessna P206 on courses around the Pacific Ocean.
Smith completed her flight on May 10, 1964, becoming the first person to fly around the world close to the equator. Her longest solo world flight of 27,750 miles (44,659 kilometers) earned her that year’s Harmon Trophy for a woman pilot.
Today, it’s not so startling for women to fly around the world, whether solo, with copilots, or with passengers for records, for work, the challenge or, like Mock, just to see the world. Each pilot has a personal quest along with different stated goals—from continuing to honor Earhart’s attempt (Anne Pellegrino (1967) and Linda Finch (1997)) to becoming the youngest solo woman (Waiz). Only Amelia Earhart would be more pleased than Jerrie Mock.