Chuck Yeager(aged 97), the American pilot who became the first person to break the sound barrier and was later immortalised in The Right Stuff, took his last breath on Tuesday early morning.
His wife, Victoria Yeager announced the News of his death in a tweet:
Fr @VictoriaYeage11 It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever.
— Chuck Yeager (@GenChuckYeager) December 8, 2020
A 2nd world war fighter doyen known for his bluntness and courage, it was his exploits as a test pilot in the years after the war that earned him everlasting fame and paved the way for the successful space missions of the 1960s.
Although his lack of a college education meant he was not chosen for Nasa’s burgeoning astronaut program in 1960, he regarded his rivals as mere passengers “throwing the right switches on instructions from the ground”.
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Chuck Yeager in a test plane in 1948. Photograph: AP |
His death-defying adventures nevertheless gained even greater legendary status thanks to his inclusion in Tom Wolfe’s book, The Right Stuff, alongside astronauts such as John Glenn. It was then made into a critically acclaimed film of the same name in which Yeager was played by Sam Shepard.
A lot of people paid their tribute to Yeager, including Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine calling his death a “tremendous loss” for the nation.
Today's passing of Gen. Chuck Yeager is a tremendous loss to our nation. His pioneering and innovative spirit advanced America's abilities in the sky and set our nation's dreams soaring into the jet age and the space age.
— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) December 8, 2020
Read my full statement: https://t.co/lnbNYGSjgd pic.twitter.com/gEUOmQOodG
Scott Kelly, a Nasa astronaut, said Yeager was a “true legend with the right stuff”.
Flying a P-51 Mustang named Glamorous Glennis in tribute to his girlfriend (and later wife), Glennis Dickhouse, he was credited with 12 “kills” of German planes – including five in a single dogfight. During one mission over Europe he was shot down before escaping France into Spain to rejoin the war effort.
After the war he became a test pilot and was assigned to Muroc air force base in California (later renamed Edwards air force base) as part of the secret XS-1 project, which had a goal of hitting Mach 1, the speed of sound.
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| Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1 plane in which he broke the sound barrier. Photograph: USAF |
On 14 October 1947, he cemented his place in history when a B-29 bomber carried his brightly coloured Bell X-1 plane 26,000 feet (7,925m) over California’s Mojave desert and let it go.
Neither Yeager nor aviation engineers knew if the plane – or the pilot – would be able to handle the unprecedented speed without breaking up. But Yeager took the X-1, which was powered by liquid oxygen and alcohol, to a speed of Mach 1.06, or about 700mph (1,126kmh) at 43,000ft (13,000m).
He then calmly landed the craft, which was also named for Glennis, on a dry lake bed, 14 minutes after it had been cut loose on a flight that was a significant step toward space exploration.
Yeager said he had noted a Mach 0.965 reading on his speedometer before it jumped off the scale without a bump.
“I was thunderstruck,” he wrote in his 1985 autobiography. “After all the anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to be a perfectly paved speedway.”
After his test pilot heyday, Yeager commanded fighter squadrons and flew 127 combat missions during the Vietnam war.
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| Yeager prepares to board an F-15D Eagle fighter plane in 2012. Photograph: Master Sgt. Jason W Edwards/US AIR FORCE/AFP |
In the early 1960s, he was in charge of astronaut-style training for air force personnel but that program ended when the U.S. government decided not to militarize space. Still, 26 people trained by Yeager went into orbit as NASA astronauts.
Yeager reached the rank of brigadier general and in 1997 he marked the 50th anniversary of his historic flight by taking an F-15 past the speed of sound. He then announced that it was his last military flight.
Yeager and Glennis(who died of cancer in 1990) had four children. He married Victoria Scott D’Angelo in 2003.
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