Margaret Day Coyle; Pioneering Woman Pilot

Margaret “Casey” Day Coyle, 74, a pioneering woman pilot, civil engineer and rocket scientist. Orphaned as a young child, she was brought up by her great-aunt, Cleveland educator Mary E. Case, who taught her to insist on equal opportunity and pay despite her sex. Coyle served as a pilot and civil engineer during World War II, and later helped design the Terrier and Trident missiles for Convair (later called General Dynamics). She also designed cryptography and war games for the Pentagon and studied the effects of bearing wear on microwave disks for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A gifted mathematician, Coyle analyzed the effects of smog and industrial emissions for Meteorology Research in Pasadena. She was the subject of the biography “Coyle: A Woman Ahead of Her Time” by Dan Bennett. On Sunday in Vista, Calif., of pulmonary edema and other problems brought on by smoking.