Comprehensive information and links about Chuck Yeager

Chuck Yeager (born February 13, 1923 in Myra, Lincoln County, West VirginiaChuck Yeager is a World War II ace and test pilot, considered a living legend of aviation. He is most famous for being the first human to undeniably travel faster than sound. Yeager's flying career has spanned more than sixty years and taken him to every corner of the globe, even into the Soviet Union during the

Biography

Yeager was born into a poor family in West Virginia and joined the army in 1939, serving as an aircraft mechanic. He was selected for flight training in 1942 and soon showed outstanding natural talent as a pilot. Posted to the United Kingdom in 1944, Yeager flew P-51 Mustangs in combat (his aircraft being named after his then-girlfriend, later wife, Glennis Faye Dickhouse (later Yeager)), gaining one victory before he was shot down over France. He escaped to Spain without being captured and was soon flying with the 363rd Fighter Squadron once more, despite a strict policy that no escaped pilot should fly over enemy territory again. Yeager went straight to Dwight D. Eisenhower himself to plead his case. He later credited his postwar success in the Air Force to this decision, saying that his test pilot career followed naturally from being a decorated combat ace with a good kill record.

Yeager demonstrated outstanding eyesight, flying skills, and combat leadership; he distinguished himself by becoming the first American pilot to make "ace in a day"—he shot down five enemy aircraft in one mission, finishing the war with 11.5 official victories, including one of the first air-to-air victories over a jet fighter (a German Me 262). An additional victory which was not officially counted for him came during the period before his combat status was reinstated: During a training flight in his P-51 over the North Sea, he happened on a German JU-88 attacking a downed B-17 Flying Fortress crew. Yeager's quick thinking and reflexes saved the B-17 crew, but because he was not supposed to be flying combat that day, his gun camera film and credit for the kill were given to his wingman Eddie Simpson.

"Yeager with Bell X-1, which - as with all of the aircraft assigned to him - he named "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife" Yeager with Bell X-1, which - as with all of the aircraft assigned to him - he named "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife

Yeager remained in the Air Force (USAF) after the war, becoming a test pilot and eventually being selected to fly the rocket-powered Bell X-1 in a NACA program to research high-speed flight. Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet (13,700m). Two nights before the scheduled date for the flight, he broke two ribs while riding a horse. He was so afraid of being removed from the mission that he went to a vet in a nearby town for treatment and only told his friend Jack Ridley about it. On the day of the flight, Yeager suffered from such pain that he could not seal the airplane's hatch by himself. So his friend, Ridley, then worked up a device (really just the end of a broom handle, used as an extra lever) to allow Yeager to seal the hatch of the airplane. Yeager's X-1 is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. When the Navy put out the claim that Yeager's flight shouldn't have counted, since he launched from a mothership whereas their test aircraft, the Douglas Skystreak, took off from the ground, Yeager's team conducted an impromptu X-1 flight, lifting off from the ground on a half-load of fuel, breaking the sound barrier and returning to the dry lake bed (the X-1's landing gear were intentionally built light for weight savings, at the cost of being too weak to sustain the aircraft's fully-fueled weight on the ground).

He later went on to break many other speed and altitude records. He also was one of the first American pilots to fly a MiG-15 after its pilot defected to South Korea with it. During the latter half of 1953, Yeager was involved with the USAF team that was working on the X-1A, an aircraft designed to surpass Mach 2 in level flight. That year, he flew chase for civilian pilot Jacqueline Cochran, a close friend of his, as she became the first woman to fly faster than sound. However, on November 20, the NACA's Douglas Skyrocket and its pilot Scott Crossfield became the first team to reach double the speed of sound. After they were bested, Ridley and Yeager decided that they were going to beat Crossfield's speed record in a flight series that they dubbed "Operation NACA Weep." Not only did they beat Crossfield, but they did it in time to spoil some celebrations planned for the 50th anniversary of flight that were going to call him the fastest man alive.

In 1962, he started the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, which produced astronauts for NASA and the USAF. It was an accident in one of the school's NF-104s that put an end to his record attempts. Between December, 1963 and January, 1964, Yeager completed five flights in the NASA M2-F1 lifting . In 1966, he took command of the 405th Fighter Wing, whose units were deployed in South Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. There he racked up another 414 hours of combat time, mostly in a Martin B-57 light bomber. In 1968, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, and was assigned as the vice-commander of the Seventeenth Air Force in July of the following year.

In 1975, following spells in Germany and Pakistan, he retired from the Air Force at Norton Air Force Base, but still spent time flying for the USAF and NASA as a consulting test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base.

On October 14, 1997, on the 50th anniversary of his historic flight past Mach 1, he flew a new Glamorous Glennis, an F-15D past Mach 1, with Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine. He was chased by a F-16 piloted by Bob Hoover, famous air show pilot and the chase pilot for the first Mach 1 flight, who flew with Col. Jimmy Doolittle III. This was Yeager's last official flight with the Air Force. At the end of his speech to the crowd he concluded, "All that I am...I owe to the Air Force." In 2004, Congress voted to authorize the President to promote Brig. Gen Yeager to Major General on the retired list; to date President Bush has not decided to go ahead with the promotion.

Yeager, who never attended college and was often modest about his background, is considered to be one of the great pilots of all time. Despite his lack of higher education, he has been supportive of educational efforts in his home state. Marshall University has named its highest academic scholarship in his honor, the Society of Yeager Scholars. Additionally, Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, is named after him. Finally, just south of Charleston, West Virginia, the Interstate 77 bridge over the Kanawha River is named for General Chuck Yeager. He was the chairman of EAA's Young Eagle Program. Yeager served on the presidential commission that investigated the explosion of the Space Shuttle on STS-51-L.

He is now retired from military test flight, after having continued on that role for three decades after his official retirement from the Air Force. Chuck now resides in Grass Valley, California where he is a local hero. MR.

, and of the movie made from it, in which he was played by Sam Shepard. He has a short cameo in a scene as bartender who—as an in-joke because NASA didn't recruit him as an astronaut because he lacked a college education—wants to serve the NASA recruiters some Scotch and is puzzled when they only want a Coke. He was the prototype flier with the "right stuff", although the modest Yeager denied any such attribute, saying it was just a combination of "luck" and "knowing the airplane" (in his autobiography, Yeager states that he does believe in ). Romantic as his character appears to be, his portrayal in the movie is somewhat skewed; Yeager was actually partially responsible for the design of the X-1. In addition, when he crashed the modified F-104 Starfighter, he did not take the plane without authorization, as seen in the motion picture; he simply did not have authorization to attempt breaking the Russian record. He did, however, receive 3rd-degree burns on his head and hands from the rocket exhaust of the ejector seat.

On February 26, 1945, Yeager married Glennis Dickhouse (died 1990). They had 4 children. In August 2003, nearly 13 years after her death, he married sometime-actress Victoria Scott D'Angelo, 36 years his junior. Three of his children are currently suing for control of his holdings, claiming that D'Angelo married Yeager for his fortune. Yeager contends they simply want more money.

There is a disputed claim by German pilot Hans Guido Mutke to be the first person to break the sound barrier, on April 9, 1945, in a Messerschmitt Me 262 (postwar testing, however, determined that the Me-262 would go out of control and break apart well short of Mach 1). As well, many contend that American pilot George Welch broke the sound barrier while diving an XP-86 Sabre two weeks before Yeager and again just 30 minutes before. In a period documentary, the USAF said that Yeager and the X-1 were the first to break the sound barrier "in level flight". This leaves the door open for claims of breaking the sound barrier in a dive before Yeager broke it in the X-1.