Jacqueline Cochran, American Aviator Jacqueline Cochran Was a Record-Breaking Female Aviator

of Flight Comprehension Skill Fact Name and Opinion Focus on Facts

Read the passage. Then complete the activity on page 83. Jacqueline Cochran, American Aviator Jacqueline Cochran was a record-breaking female aviator. Though not as famous as Charles Lindbergh or Amelia Earhart, she certainly deserves to be. Jacqueline was born in the early 1900s in Pensacola, Florida. She had a poor childhood in a lumber mill town. By age thirteen, she was I working as a hair cutter in a beauty salon. Eventually, she moved to New York City and started her own cosmetics company. This was a courageous and admirable achievement. So that she could sell her products in more places, she learned to fly. "At that moment, when I paid for my first lesson," Cochran said, "a beauty operator ceased to exist and an aviator was born." Soon Jacqueline was the leading female pilot in the United States. In September of 1938, with just enough gas for another few minutes of flying, she won the transcontinental Bendix Race. This was a truly incredible feat: the former beautician flew the 2,042 miles from Los Angeles to Cleveland in an amazing 8 hours, 10 minutes, and 31 seconds. She was the first person to finish the course nonstop. More than once, she was awarded the women's Harmon Trophy, the highest honor given then to American women aviators. She also broke the women's altitude record and several speed records. "I might have been bom in a hovel," Jacqueline said, "but I was determined to travel with the wind and the stars." In 1943, during World War II, Jacqueline became the leader of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs. These pilots did jobs such as ferrying planes, training B-17 turret gunners, testing planes at repair depots, and teaching staff pilots at navigator schools. By the end of 1944, however. Congress unfairly refused to admit the WASPs into the military and ended the program. Despite her disappointment, Jacqueline continued to fly and set records until the 1970s, when health problems forced her to stop flying. She died in 1980.

82 Theme 2: What Really Happened? of Flight Comprehension Skill Name and Opinion

Focus on Facts continued

Answer these questions about the passage on page 82.

I. What opinion about Jacqueline Cochran does the author give in the first paragraph?

2. The author includes several facts and one opinion in the second paragraph. Write them here. Facts:

Opinion: :

3. What opinion about Jacqueline's victory in the transcontinental Bendix Race does the author give in the third paragraph?

4. The author uses facts to support an opinion about Jacqueline's victory in the Bendix Race. What are they?

5. What opinion does the author give in the fourth paragraph?

6. Rewrite the following sentence so it states a fact and not an opinion: Jacqueline Cochran was an amazing female aviator.

^ Theme 2: What Really Happened?