“You Have Left Them Behind”: Jackie Cochran and the T-38 Talon

A T-38 Talon, in bright white, screamed across the desert; an F-100 Super Sabre followed. Southern California baked in the heat of the summer of 1961, even at nine in the morning. Jacqueline Cochran gripped the controls of the Talon, keeping it in just the right alignment to remain within a 9 mile (15-kilometer) closed-course oval track while pushing the limits of how fast the plane could go. Trailing behind her was Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. Cochran had become the first woman to do so eight years earlier and was now continuing to push the limits of aviation at age 55. She maxed out the T-38’s speed on August 24, 1961, at 844.2 miles per hour (1358.6 km per hr), a new speed record for that distance.

For almost six weeks, Cochran flew that same T-38 in a blistering attempt at a series of records. Even a case of the flu didn’t keep her out of the airplane. She succeeded in setting eight speed, distance, and altitude records by mid-October 1961. That same T-38 is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

T-38s are well-loved by most pilots that flew them. As Talon pilot Lt. Howard Morland remembered, “It looked like a comic book superhero.” Like many superheroes, the T-38 had a complicated origin story: Northrop had been attempting to make a new fighter aircraft, but the heavy jet engines of the early 1950s would have required a large, heavy plane. That plan got turned on its head in July 1954 when General Electric engineers showed off their newest design, the lightweight J85, which weighed under 600 pounds but could generate over 3,800 pounds of thrust. The engine was so small that Northrop engineers at first thought it was a scale model. But its impressive thrust-to-weight ratio made it perfect for a lightweight supersonic fighter that could be launched from the U.S. Navy’s escort carriers. Northrop began work on just such a fighter, calling it the N-156.

Unfortunately, the Navy soon cancelled its requirement for the new lightweight fighter, but Northrop continued working on the N-156 anyway, hoping for international sales. Another opportunity presented itself when the U.S. Air Force issued a requirement for a new supersonic trainer in 1955. The N-156 competed with North American’s F-100F, the two-seat version of the F-100 Super Sabre. Northrop’s plane was cheaper, easier to maintain, and safer (with its two engines instead of the F-100’s single engine). The Air Force declared the N-156 the winner and, after further development, the first prototype, newly designated YT-38 Talon, flew for the first time on April 10, 1959.

The Talon was the first supersonic trainer aircraft and provided foundational training experiences for Air Force pilots from the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member nations. Tens of thousands of pilots trained in T-38s. Astronauts flew them to keep their flying skills sharp before voyaging into space. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team chose them from 1974 to 1983 to demonstrate the beauty of precision flying and of United States aircraft technology. Talons were used as test beds for new equipment and weapons systems, and variants of the plane went on to achieve their own fame, most notably the F-5 Freedom Fighter and Tiger II.

It’s no surprise that this aircraft, which went from being an unwanted design to an indispensable element of the United States military and space program, was the perfect fit for Jackie Cochran, whose career followed a similar trajectory. She earned a pilot’s license in the early 1930s and began an air racing career, gaining attention and the nickname “Speed Queen” for her frequent record-setting flights and trophies. In addition to her work with the women pilots’ organization the Ninety-Nines, Cochran was an important contributor to the Civil Air Patrol and during World War II was the head of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). Although blocked from flying combat missions, the WASP were a key contribution to the Allied effort in World War II, primarily by ferrying aircraft from production facilities to their designated units throughout the United States or by towing aerial targets for gunnery training.

She won the Bendix Trophy in 1938, but that was only the beginning of her record-setting career.. She broke the sound barrier in 1953 while flying a Canadair Sabre Mk.3 (a variant of the North American F-86 Sabre). After her eight record-setting flights in the T-38 Talon, she continued pushing the envelope. Her final record was set in an F-104 Starfighter, which she piloted at 1,429.297 mph (2,300.23 km/hr) in 1964 at age 58.

The T-38 that she flew, now on display at the Smithsonian Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, stayed in the Air Force inventory after Cochran’s flights, going on to be used in important engineering flight tests at McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento, California (the aircraft is currently displayed in these flight test markings). The U.S. Air Force transferred the plane to the Air and Space Museum in 2004, but it remained in storage for over a decade. In 2018, the Museum’s then-director Dr. Ellen Stofan toured the storage facility and spotted Cochran’s T-38 from among a wealth of other artifacts in the collection. A simple question about whether anyone had considered including the aircraft in an upcoming gallery led to a series of decisions resulting in the plane’s display. In early 2022, the T-38 will be moved to our flagship Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. But until then, we are proud to share it with visitors to the Udvar-Hazy Center. A grant from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative supported preparing the T-38 Talon for display.

Cochran and the T-38 both had long careers that broke important new ground in aviation history. “I am often asked what my sensations were when flying at Mach 1 or beyond way up there,” Cochran said, reflecting on her life. “Up there things come into proportion. The people on earth have disappeared. You have left them behind you and are on your own, impressed with the immensity of space—so close to space and those noonday stars, convinced there must be a divine order of things.”