Jacqueline Auriol

Jacqueline Auriol, born Jacqueline Douet on 5 November 1917 and died on 11 February 2000, was a French aviator who set several world speed records. The daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder, she studied art in Paris, helped the French Resistance during the German occupation, took up flying in 1946 and got her pilot licence in 1948. She became an accomplished stunt flier and test pilot. A 1949 crash of a SCAN 30, in which she was a passenger, broke many of the bones in her face and left her spending nearly three years in hospital for 33 reconstructive operations. She earned a military pilot licence in 1950, qualified as one of the first female test pilots, was among the first women to break the sound barrier and set five world speed records in the 1950s and 1960s. She won the Harmon Trophy four times and in 1983 became a founding member of the French air and space academy.