Sunday, April 18, 2004
Jerrie Mock, who moved to Florida, gave up piloting in 1969.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Forty years later, it's still amazing to an Ohio native that she was the first woman to fly around the world.
"At the time, I thought everyone is going to be flying," Jerrie Mock said. "I wasn't planning on being the first or anything like that."
Mock was a 38-year-old housewife from suburban Bexley when she acted on her husband's suggestion, beginning the 29-day, 23,103-mile historic trek. A licensed pilot since 1958, she had already flown to the Bahamas, Canada and Mexico.
After putting a new engine in her single-engine Cessna, the "Spirit of Columbus," she took off from Port Columbus on March 19, 1964.
She said she wasn't concerned at the time with inspiring others.
"I just wanted to see the world," Mock said.
But other say her effect is undeniable.
List of influential women
Women in Aviation, a nonprofit organization, lists Mock among the 100 most influential women in the aviation and aerospace industries.
"We are very proud of firsts and trendsetters," said Amy Laboda, editor in chief of Aviation for Women, the official publication for Women in Aviation. "Somebody who is flying around the world, and especially in those days, was both."
Today, about 6 percent of the 700,000 active pilots in the United States are women, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Women make up about 3 percent of the commercial airline pilots in the United States.
The Columbus Dispatch was a sponsor of Mock's flight, which cost about $5,000, Mock said. Fuel was 34 cents a gallon at the time.
Logistical problems prevented her from her plan of filing stories for the newspaper along the way.
"In the Azores, the only telephone lines went to Lisbon. There was no way I could telephone back anything. In some countries, the communications office was open only certain hours, but not hours I could conveniently get there," she said.
Film was confiscated
When she reached Egypt, Mock asked the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to send back a roll of film to the newspaper, but it never made it home. She said that years later a friend at the embassy told her the film was confiscated by the U.S. government because she mistakenly landed at an unmarked Egyptian military base.
About two weeks after completing the flight, President Lyndon Johnson awarded Mock the FAA's exceptional service decoration.
After a trip to New Guinea in 1969, Mock gave up piloting, she said.
"I knew when I took off from Port Columbus that was going to be my last flight because I knew I had no more money to spend on airplanes, at least not the way I wanted to fly," Mock said.
"But I do miss it. There is nothing like being up in the air by yourself."
Now 78, Mock lives in Quincy, Fla., about 20 miles west of Tallahassee and about a mile from a small airport, where she often goes to watch planes and engage pilots in "hangar talk."