Jacqueline Auriol (5 November 1917, Challans, Vendée – 11 February 2000) was a French aviator who set several world speed records.
Born in Challans, Vendée, the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder, Edmond Pierre Douet, she graduated from the University of Nantes then she studied art at the École du Louvre in Paris.
In 1938, she married Paul Auriol, son of Vincent Auriol (who would later become President of France). During World War II, she worked against the German occupation of France by helping the French Resistance.
She took up flying in 1946, got her pilot's license in 1948 and became an accomplished stunt flier and test pilot. Auriol was severely injured in a crash of a SCAN 30 in which she was a passenger in 1949—many of the bones in her face were broken—and spent nearly three years in hospitals undergoing 33 reconstructive operations. To occupy her mind she studied algebra, trigonometry, aerodynamics, and other subjects necessary to obtain advanced pilot certification....
