A Legend - Chuck Yeager

[AH_DealnDave]

Chuck Yeager, the most famous test pilot of his generation who was the first to break the sound barrier, and, thanks to Tom Wolfe, came to personify the death-defying aviator who possessed the elusive yet unmistakable "right stuff," died on Monday, December 7th, 2020. He was 97.

General Yeager came out of the West Virginia hills with only a high school education and with a drawl that left many a fellow pilot bewildered. The first time he went up in a plane, he was sick to his stomach.

But he became a fighter ace in World War II, shooting down five German planes in a single day and 13 over all. In the decade that followed, he helped usher in the age of military jets and spaceflight. He flew more than 150 military aircraft, logging more than 10,000 hours in the air.

His signal achievement came on Oct. 14, 1947, when he climbed out of a B-29 bomber as it ascended over California's Mojave Desert from what was then known as Muroc Air Force Base, and entered the cockpit of an orange, bullet-shaped, rocket-powered experimental plane attached to the bomb bay.

An Air Force captain at the time, he zoomed off in the plane, a Bell Aircraft X-1, at an altitude of 23,000 feet, and when he reached about 43,000 feet above the desert, history's first sonic boom reverberated across the floor of the dry lake beds. He had reached a speed of 700 miles an hour, breaking the sound barrier and dispelling the long-held fear that any plane flying at or beyond the speed of sound would be torn apart by shock waves.

I had the opportunity to meet Gen. Yeager at an airshow in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He was a soft spoken person at the time and a very honorable gentleman. He will be missed.

[_AH_Col._Hogan]

Rest in peace Mr. Yeager.

~S

[_AH_Jack]

One of our great heroes...a tremendous loss for our country.

[_AH_JimDandy]

He was a Major instrument in ground breaking aviation. Rest in Peace great one.

[_AH_Col._Hogan]

[_AH_fraggmann]

He did things we could only dream of doing.
~S~ to a real American Hero  :sad-056:

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Yeah that's too bad. 97, hard to complain about a run like that.

DW

[_AH_Twenty]

A true American Hero, and Ace in a day!

~S~ and Godspeed!