Pilot Chuck Yeager Dies At 97, Had ‘The Right Stuff’ And Then Some

Enlarge this image


Chuck Yeager, standing next to the «Glamorous Glennis,» the Bell X-1 experimental plane in which he first broke the sound barrier.





AP



hide caption



toggle caption


AP





Enlarge this image


Yeager strikes a pose with Sam Shepard, who played him in the movie version of The Right Stuff.





Warner Bros./Getty Images



hide caption



toggle caption


Warner Bros./Getty Images



National
Flying High with Chuck Yeager


SciFri Book Club Has ‘The Right Stuff’


General Chuck Yeager

Van der Linden says Yeager became a fighter ace, shooting down five enemy aircraft in a single mission and four others on a different day. Then he faced another challenge during a dogfight over France. «He got himself shot down and he escaped,» van der Linden says. «And very few people do that, and he managed not only to escape. He got back to England and normally they would ship people home after that. And he persuaded the authorities to let him fly again and he did which was highly unusual.» In addition to his flying skills, Yeager also had «better than perfect» vision: 20-10. He reportedly could see enemy fighters from 50 miles away and end up fighting in four wars.

Today, the plane Yeager first broke the sound barrier in, the X-1, hangs inside the Air and Space museum. Museum-goer Norm Healey was visiting from Canada and reading about Yeager’s accomplishments. «I loved airplanes as a kid. And Chuck Yeager was always sort of the cowboy of the airplane world. At least that was my perspective when I was young. As I’ve grown older and now have kids and a family and a wife, I appreciate it much more now, his courage.»

Yeager never considered himself to be courageous or a hero. He said he was just doing his job. A job that required more than skill. «All through my career, I credit luck a lot with survival because of the kind of work we were doing.»

Chuck Yeager spent the last years of his life doing what he truly loved: flying airplanes, speaking to aviation groups and fishing for golden trout in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

«Gen. Yeager’s 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,» NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement late Monday. «Chuck’s bravery and accomplishments are a testament to the enduring strength that made him a true American original, and NASA’s Aeronautics work owes much to his brilliant contributions to aerospace science.»