Celebrated pilot Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier among many achievements, died this evening at the age of 97.
Snip from the Mail:
Yeager is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest fighter pilots to have ever lived.
He rose to fame in the Second World War, becoming a fighter pilot and shooting down at least 11 enemy aircraft.
In 1947 he became the first pilot confirmed to have broken the speed of sound, in level flight.
He went on to become a test pilot, breaking numerous records for speed and altitude, and then fight in Vietnam.
Yeager retired in 1975, but did not slow down.
On the 65th anniversary of his breaking the speed of sound, he did it again - aged 89, as a passenger in an F-15.
Charles Elwood Yeager was born on Feb. 13, 1923, in Myra, W. Va., the second of five children of Albert Yeager and the former Susie Mae Sizemore. He grew up in nearby Hamlin, a town of 400, where his father drilled for natural gas in the coal fields. By the time he was 6, he was shooting squirrels and rabbits and skinning them for family dinners, reveling in a country boy’s life.
He enlisted in the Army Air Forces out of high school in September 1941, becoming an airplane mechanic. One day he took a ride with a maintenance officer flight-testing a plane he had serviced and promptly threw up over the back seat. But he joined a flight program for enlisted men in July 1942, figuring it would get him out of kitchen detail and guard duty. He received his pilot wings and appointment as a flight officer in March 1943 while at a base in Arizona, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant after arriving in England for training.
He possessed a natural coordination and aptitude for understanding an airplane’s mechanical system along with coolness under pressure. He enjoyed spins and dives and loved staging mock dogfights with his fellow trainees.
Lots more at the link.
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