Margaret M. "Marge" Hurlburt was born and lived in Painesville, Ohio.[2] She graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1938 and went on to teach school in Ohio.[3] In the early 1940s, she took up flying at the airport in Willoughby, Ohio.[1]
The pioneering aviator Jacqueline Cochran recruited her into the Women's Air Service Pilots (WASP) in 1943.[4] Between 1943 and 1945, she ferried aircraft around the country and towed targets for gunners, flying C-60s, B-24s, and B-17s.[5][6]
After the war, she obtained her rating as a flight instructor and worked at the Willoughby airfield, where she began learning aerobatics in the AT-6 aircraft. Not long afterwards, she won the top prize at the women's Halle Trophy Race at the Cleveland Air Races.[4]
In 1947, Hurlburt set a new international women's flight-speed record of 337 miles per hour, besting the previous women's record of 292.27 mph set by Cochran a decade earlier.[7] She set the record in a loaned FG-1 Corsair. Following her record-setting flight, the media dubbed her "Queen of the Air".[4]
During this period, she served on the board of directors of the Professional Race Pilots Association, representing the interests of female pilots.[4]
That same year, she joined the Flying Tigers aerial circus to raise money for a midget racer she was designing known as the "Hurlburt Hurricane".[1] Only a few days later, she was taking part in an air show at Decorah, Iowa, in a borrowed AT-6, when her aircraft crashed during a slow roll, killing her instantly.[4][8] The International Women's Air & Space Museum holds some artifacts from her life.[2][6]
