Myrtle "Kay" Thompson Cagle was born in North Carolina on June 3, 1925. At the age of 12, she learned to fly under the tutelage of her brother. She received her wings at the age of 14, becoming the youngest pilot in the state and possibly the nation at the time. In high school, she was allowed to join the aeronautics class, and did so well that when the instructor was drafted, she stepped in and finished the year as the teacher. At 19, she received her private license, and owned an air¬plane by the age of 20, and by 23, received her commercial license. During the 1940s, Myrtle joined the Civil Air Patrol, the Ninety-Nines, and was accepted into the World War II WASP program. While living in North Carolina, Cagle ran an airport near Raleigh while maintaining a charter service. By 1951, she held a Commercial Pilots license with Airplane Single and Multi-Engine Land ratings, Instrument ratings, and was a certified Flight Instructor, Flight Instrument Instructor and Ground Instructor. In 1946, she joined the staff of the Johnstonian Sun newspaper in Selma, North Carolina, writing the weekly aviation column "Air Currents," later moving it to the Raleigh News and Observer where it ran from 1953 to 1960. In 1955, she was named Miss North Carolina Air Power. After moving to Macon, Georgia, in 1961, she received an invitation from the Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico to be one of twenty-five women tested for the new NASA Women's Astronaut Program. By this time, she had built up an impressive 4,300 hours of flying time, more than some of "Mercury 7" men. Cagle and the other twelve women endured all the testing of their physical strength, conditioning endurance, and adaptability and successfully completed the program and became known as the "Mercury 13". Even though she was able and willing, Cagle never made it to space due to a lack of funding. In 1995, Dateline aired a segment on these women with Turner Pictures later purchasing the movie rights. Over the years, Myrtle Cagle has logged more than 10,000 hours teaching hundreds of people how to fly. She has flown in transcontinental air races such as the 14th annual Women's International Air Race held in Mexico on May 11, 1964. Between 1961 and 1964, she was a flight instructor for the Robins Air Force Base Aero Club teaching students how to fly Cessna 150s. In 1986, she joined the ranks at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center as a co-op student for Americus' South Georgia Technical Institute and was assigned to the C-130 turbo-prop shop. In 1988, she attended South Georgia Technical Institute for her A&P license, becoming the second female graduate in the school's history.

For her outstanding accomplishments as a pilot, flight instructor, mechanic and safety counselor, Myrtle "Kay" Thompson Cagle was enshrined in the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame on April 26, 2003.