Seven Members of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees in 1995 - GPN-2002-000196

Geraldine Hamilton Sloan Truhill (November 12, 1929 – November 18, 2013) was an American

aviator An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

. She was part of the "

Mercury 13 The Mercury 13 were thirteen American women who took part in a privately funded program run by William Randolph Lovelace II aiming to test and screen women for spaceflight. The participants—First Lady Astronaut Trainees (or FLATs) as Jerrie C ...

", the group of women who underwent the same physiological tests as the Mercury Seven during the same time frame. She served as the Vice President for Air Freighters International and Air Services, Inc. Truhill died on November 18, 2013.

Early life

Truhill was first exposed to aviation a young age, but due to the restrictive views on women pilots during the era, she was often discouraged from pursuing the career. When she was 15, she began taking flying lessons without the knowledge of her parents. After this was discovered, she was sent to a Catholic School in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

Aviation career and Mercury 13

Truhill spent much of her time based out of

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

, where she began a partnership with Joe Truhill, who she would eventually marry. She and Joe flew North American B-25's under Texas Instruments, Incorporated. Through this, she helped to develop Terrain Following Radar (TFR) and smart bombs. Truhill also participated in numerous Air Races. In 1961, she got a call from friend

Jerrie Cobb Geraldyn M. Cobb (March 5, 1931 – March 18, 2019), commonly known as Jerrie Cobb, was an American aviator. She was also part of the Mercury 13, a group of women who underwent physiological screening tests at the same time as the original Merc ...

, asking for her interest in a secret government project, which would turn out to be the Women in Space Program run by Dr. William Randolph Lovelace, who ran an astronaut testing center for NASA in Albuquerque, N.M. Through Dr. Lovelace, the women went through the same Mercury era testing as the men. After the program was halted, the Truhills bought and flew a P-51 Mustang, during which she also modeled a pink lycra flight suit for Monsanto. She bought a house in Richardson, where she lived until her death.

''She Should Have Gone to the Moon''

Truhill was the subject of the 2008 documentary ''

She Should Have Gone to the Moon She most commonly refers to: * She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English. She or S.H.E. may also refer to: Literature and films *'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagg ...

'' which was based upon a series of lengthy conversations between Truhill and director

Ulrike Kubatta Ulrike is a Germanic female given name. Notable people named Ulrike include: * Princess Ulrike Friederike Wilhelmine of Hesse-Kassel (1722–1787), German noble * Ulrike von Levetzow (1804–1899), German noble and friend of Johann Wolfgang von G ...

in which she tells the story of the Mercury 13 programme in her own words and from her own point of view. The interviews are augmented, supported and illustrated by archive footage and stylised reconstruction sequences. Truhill recounts details of her training, and that of other women trainees, reflects on the achievements of American female pilots and astronauts (notably ignoring Soviet women such as Valentina Tereshkova), and on her personal story including her pre-Mercury 13 work with flight testing new equipment for Texas Instruments up to and during the

Bay of Pigs The Bay of Pigs ( es, Bahía de los Cochinos) is an inlet of the Gulf of Cazones located on the southern coast of Cuba. By 1910, it was included in Santa Clara Province, and then instead to Las Villas Province by 1961, but in 1976, it was reas ...

incident, and her personally confronting Lyndon Johnson at a fundraiser to challenge the cessation of the Women in Space programme.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Truhill, Jerri Sloan 1929 births 2013 deaths American women aviators Mercury 13 Aviators from Texas