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The story of Mock and her “Spirit of Columbus” (nicknamed “Charlie”) is one of the great under-the-radar tales in aviation history.

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Ode to a Legend : The First Woman of Flight

Amelia Earhart may get the book and movie play, but 81-year-old Geraldine Mock has the record.

By: Eric Capper
August/Sept 07 , Page 30

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The year was 1964, and Geraldine Mock was a 38-year-old suburban housewife living in Bexley, Ohio, with three children, a modified ’58 Cessna 180 parked out at the airfield and a serious case of wanderlust. When she announced to friends and neighbors her plans to fly around the world, “Nobody understood what the heck I was doing,” she recalls. But whatever disbelief the good people of Bexley were feeling, it was likely nothing compared to the reaction when, 14 days into her journey, Mock mistakenly landed her unidentified plane on a secret Soviet missile base in Inshaas, Egypt.

Fortunately, the Soviets’ Egyptian counterparts were the ones who discovered the surprise or she might still be there. As it was, an Egyptian commander scurried her off to a hangar and served her tea until nightfall before letting her continue on her way. And 15 days, approximately 7,000 miles and dozens of other adventures later, Mock had finally accomplished what Amelia Earhart had so famously attempted and failed to do three decades before: become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.

The story of Mock and her “Spirit of Columbus” (nicknamed “Charlie”) is one of the great under-the-radar tales in aviation history. “When I was seven and my father drove my mother and I out to a little airport and I had a ride in a Ford Tri-motor, I just loved it!” she recalls of the summer of ’33, a full year before Lindbergh’s famous flight. “Looking down, the cars were like little insects. When I climbed off the airplane I told my parents I was going to be a pilot,” she says. True to her word Mock earned her pilot’s license in 1958, and three years later became the manager of Columbus’s Price Field — and the first woman licensed to manage an airport in Ohio.

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