Jacqueline Auriol (1917-2000)
By Jacques Villeglé (Quimper, 1926)
Color pencil and watercolor ink
« I had seen Jacqueline Auriol, daughter-in-law of the President of the Fifth Republic Vincent Auriol, a former student of the Louvre school, the first female test pilot - notably on Concorde - an aerobatic pilot, four times holder of the women's flying speed record... Her determination in the face of risk and its consequences, with a smile, had struck me. »
Nicknamed the " fastest woman in the world ", Jacqueline Auriol was the first woman to be licensed as a test pilot in 1951. Disfigured by a plane crash in 1949, she took advantage of her two years of convalescence to perfect her technical knowledge in aviation. After twenty-two surgical operations to treat her injuries, the aviatrix took back the controls of her plane and continued to break speed records, becoming the first European woman to break the sound barrier in 1953.
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