Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock (November 22, 1925 – September 30, 2014) was an American pilot and the first woman to fly solo around the world. She flew a single-engine Cessna 180 (registered N1538C) christened the Spirit of Columbus and nicknamed "Charlie." The trip began March 19, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio, and ended April 17, 1964, in Columbus. It took 29 days, 11 hours and 59 minutes, with 21 stopovers and covered almost 22,860 miles (36,790 km). During the journey, Mock became the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean from west to east and the first woman to fly a single-engine plane in either direction across the Pacific.
The flight was part of a "race" that developed between Jerrie Mock and Joan Merriam Smith who had flown from a field near San Francisco, CA on March 17, 1964; Smith's departure date and flight path was the same as the aviator Amelia Earhart's last flight. Mock finished first.
In 1970 Mock published the story of her round-the-world flight in the book Three-Eight Charlie. While that book is now out of print, a 50th anniversary edition was later published including maps, weather charts and photos. Three-Eight Charlie is a reference to the tail number, N1538C, of the Cessna 180 Skywagon Mock used to fly around the world. Before her death, Mock, mother of three children, resided in Quincy, Florida, northwest of the state capital, Tallahassee.
Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock was born on November 22, 1925, in Newark, Ohio to Timothy and Blanche (Wright) Fredritz. Her paternal grandparents were German emigrants. During her childhood, she found that she had more in common with the boys. Her interest for flying was sparked when she was 7 years old when she and her father had the opportunity to fly in the cockpit of a Ford Trimotor airplane. In high school, she took an engineering course in which she was the only girl and decided flying was her passion. She graduated from Newark High School in 1943 and went on to attend Ohio State University. At OSU, she became a member of Phi Mu. She left her studies at OSU to wed her husband, Russell Mock, in 1945.
Mock's flight began and ended at Ohio hometown's Port Columbus Airport. Her expedition's financing included a loan from The Columbus Dispatch newspaper. She travelled eastbound, over Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, among other countries. After stressful days traveling over the Atlantic, Mock was greeted by the president of the Aero Club of Morocco and stayed the night in a French home, where Mock reports, "there were no nightmares of thunderheads over the Atlantic. Dressed in red satin, I danced in marble palaces." Mock later journeyed to Saudi Arabia, where she landed at Dhahran Airport. In her book Three-Eight Charlie, Mock says that after landing in Saudi Arabia the crowd of men around her looked puzzled. One of the men approached her aircraft. “His white-kaffiyeh-covered head nodded vehemently, and he shouted to the throng that there was no man. This brought a rousing ovation”, she recalled. Mock was quite a spectacle in Saudi Arabia where women would not be allowed to drive cars until 2017, much less fly a plane. In Egypt, she mistakenly landed at a secret off-the-map military base instead of the Cairo Airport.
Traveling the world gave Mock a new perspective and experiences. Flying over Vietnam, she noted: "Somewhere not far away a war was being fought, but from the sky above, all looked peaceful."
Accomplishments and recognition
First woman to fly both oceans
First woman to fly solo around the world
First woman to fly the North Atlantic from the United States to Africa
First woman to fly the Pacific from west to east
First woman to fly the Pacific in both directions
1965: Speed on close circuit of 500 km in Class C1-c
1966: Distance in straight line, women's record
1968: Distance in a close circuit, women's record
1968: Speed on a recognized course : (Columbus (Ohio) to San Juan (Puerto Rico), Class C1-d and women's record
1969: Speed on a recognized course : Oakland (California to Honolulu) Class C1-d and women's record
Honiara to Rabaul, Class C1-d and women's record