Jackie Cochrane was the first female to accomplish such a feat in 1953. She was also the first woman to land and take off from an aircraft carrier, the first woman to reach Mach 2, the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic, the first woman enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the first pilot to make blind (instrument) landing, the only woman to ever be President of the Federation Aeronautique Internationall (1958-1961), the first woman to fly a fixed-wing, jet aircraft across the Atlantic, the first pilot to fly above 20,000 feet with an oxygen mask and the first woman to enter the Bendix Trans-continental Race. She still holds more distance and speed records than any pilot living or dead, male or female.
