US Air Force / The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images file. That year, he flew a chase aircraft for the civilian pilot Jackie Cochran as she became the first woman to fly faster than sound. AP 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 . Chuck Yeager, US test pilot who broke sound barrier, dead at 97 - 10tv.com Yeager retired from the Air Force in 1975 and moved to a ranch in Cedar Ridge in Northern California where he continued working as a consultant to the Air Force and Northrop Corp. and became well known to younger generations as a television pitchman for automotive parts and heat pumps. The family later moved to Hamlin, the county seat. Chuck Yeager, Test Pilot Who Broke the Sound Barrier, Is Dead at 97 Chuck Yeager, World War II ace and first pilot to break sound barrier On October 19, 2006, the state of West Virginia also honored Yeager with a marker along Corridor G (part of U.S. Highway 119) in his home Lincoln County, and also renamed part of the highway the Yeager Highway. He said, You dont concentrate on risks. Renowned test pilot Chuck Yeager dies > Spangdahlem Air Base > News Throughout his life, Yeager set numerous other flight records. Yeager shot down 13 German planes on 64 missions during World War II, including five on a single mission. The couple prospered because of Yeager's best-selling autobiography, speaking engagements, and commercial ventures. With the U.S. Air Force's 75th Birthday approaching next year, we look back at the legacy of the first person to break the sound barrier at a time when the Air Force was not even a month old. Dec 8, 2020 08:46 Chuck Yeager, first pilot to break sound barrier, has died at age 97 The World War II Air Force fighter pilot ace showed he had the "right stuff" when in 1947 he became the. Sure, I was apprehensive, he said in 1968. News of the then-astounding accomplishment was kept from the public until June 1948 but that didnt matter to Yeager. Yeager, from a small town in the hills of West Virginia, flew for more than 60 years, including piloting an X-15 to near 1,000 mph at Edwards in October 2002 at age 79. Yeager had unusually sharp vision (a visual acuity rated 20/10), which once enabled him to shoot a deer at 600yd (550m). Escaping via resistance networks to Spain, he was back in England by May, and resumed flying. [81], During this time, Yeager also served as a technical adviser for three Electronic Arts flight simulator video games. Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer was Electronic Art's top-selling game for 1987. He was 97. Chuck's devoted spouse died in 1990 after a long battle with cancer. [54], Now a full colonel in 1962,[55] after completion of a year's studies and final thesis on STOL aircraft [56] at the Air War College, Yeager became the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, which produced astronauts for NASA and the USAF, after its redesignation from the USAF Flight Test Pilot School. General Yeager's 14-minute sprint over the Mojave Desert on Oct. 14, 1947, is considered the most important airplane flight since Orville Wright swept over the sands of Kitty Hawk for 40 yards . He was 97 when he passed away. It was a feat of considerable courage, as nobody was certain at the time whether an aircraft could survive the shockwaves of a sonic boom. Yeager had two brothers, Roy and Hal Jr., and two sisters, Doris Ann (accidentally killed at age two by six-year-old Roy playing with a firearm)[4][5][6] and Pansy Lee. Among the flights he made after breaking the sound barrier was one on Dec. 12. 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. [11], At the time of his flight training acceptance, he was a crew chief on an AT-11. Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager prepares to board an F-15D Eagle from the 65th Aggressor Squadron at . When he was asked to repeat the feat for photographers, Yeager replied: You should never strafe the same place twice cause the gunners will be waiting for you.. (AP) Retired Air Force Brig. Chuck Yeager in 1948. In 1950, General Yeagers X-1 plane, which he christened Glamorous Glennis, honoring his wife, went on display at the SmithsonianInstitution in Washington. And was just such a superb pilot.". They had four children: Donald, Michael, Sharon and Susan. Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager died, Dec. 7, 2020. [23], Yeager demonstrated outstanding flying skills and combat leadership. Throughout his life, he flew more than 360 different types of aircraft over a 70-year period, and continued to fly for two decades after retirement as a consultant pilot for the United States Air Force. [23] In the meantime, Yeager shot down his second enemy aircraft, a German Junkers Ju 88 bomber, over the English Channel. 2. The previous year, he became the first pilot to break the sound barrier. In 1945, after earning ace status for downing 13 German warplanes in World War II, including five Me-109 fighters in one day, Yeager was posted as a maintenance officer at the Air Force's Flight Test Division at Wright Field, Ohio. American World War II flying ace and test pilot, Yeager had not been in an airplane prior to January 1942, when his Engineering Officer invited him on a test flight after maintenance of an. Missions featured several of Yeager's accomplishments and let players attempt to top his records. Downed pilots were not generally put back into combat, but his pleas to see action again were granted. [80] In 1986, he was invited to drive the Chevrolet Corvette pace car for the 70th running of the Indianapolis 500. Chuck Yeager, Test Pilot Who Broke the Sound Barrier, Is Dead at 97 A World War II fighter ace and Air Force general, he was, according to Tom Wolfe, "the most righteous of all the possessors of. He was also a key supporter of the Marshall University's Society of Yeager Scholars, which was named in his honor. Yeager strikes a pose with Sam Shepard, who played him in the movie version of The Right Stuff. Ive flown 341 types of military planes in every country in the world and logged about 18,000 hours, he said in an interview in the January 2009 issue of Mens Journal. Yeager's wife,. The pair started dating shortly thereafter, and married in August 2003. This was the sound barrier, which no aviator had crossed and lived to tell the tale. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? [President] Kennedy is using this to make 'racial equality,' so do not speak to him, do not socialize with him, do not drink with him, do not invite him over to your house, and in six months he'll be gone. [19], Despite a regulation prohibiting "evaders" (escaped pilots) from flying over enemy territory again, the purpose of which was to prevent resistance groups from being compromised by giving the enemy a second chance to possibly capture him, Yeager was reinstated to flying combat. Yeager had been cheap, sneered some, and thus expendable. ", Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies, "The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club", "Famous pilot Yeager re-enacting right stuff 65 years later", "Chuck Yeager, Pioneer of Supersonic Flight, Dies at Age 97", "Chuck Yeager is honored by Tuskegee Airman", "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement", "The Daily Diary of President Gerald R. Ford: December 8, 1976", "Ground-Level Monuments Honor Heroes of the Air", "Harry S. Truman The President's Day, November 2, 1950". He ended up flying more than 360 types of aircraft and retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general. The pilot later commanded fighter squadrons in Germany and Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and was promoted to brigadier general in 1969. Brig. Not only did they beat Crossfield by setting a new record at Mach 2.44 on December 12, 1953, but they did it in time to spoil a celebration planned for the 50th anniversary of flight in which Crossfield was to be called "the fastest man alive". ". When Armstrong did touch down, the wheels became stuck in the mud, bringing the plane to a sudden stop and provoking Yeager to fits of laughter. Working with the Piper company he broke several flying records for light aircraft. Chuck Yeager, the steely "Right Stuff" test pilot who took aviation to the doorstep of space by becoming the first person to break the sound barrier more than 70 years ago, died on Monday at. His last supersonic flight, in 2012 commemorated the 65th anniversary of his breaking of the sound barrier. US Air Force officer and test pilot Chuck Yeager, known as "the fastest man alive," has died at the age of 97. Yeager became the first person to break the . Chuck Yeager's history, legacy still live in Kern County and beyond. The trick is to enjoy the years remaining, he said in Yeager: An Autobiography., I havent yet done everything, but by the time Im finished, I wont have missed much, he wrote. Yeager, who was at the time just 24, managed to break the speed of sound at an altitude of 45,000ft (13,700m). In 1962, he became commander of the school at Edwards that trained prospective astronauts. On Dec. 12, 1953, Chuck Yeager set two more altitude and speed records in the X-1A: 74,700 feet and Mach 2.44. Charles Elwood Yeager was born on Feb. 13, 1923, in Myra, W. Va., the second of five children of Albert and Susie Mae (Sizemore) Yeager. He was 97. When he left home his father advised him never to gamble or buy a pick-up truck that was not built by General Motors. On Oct. 12, 1944, leading three fighter squadrons escorting bombers over Bremen, Germany, he downed five German planes, becoming an ace in a day. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Yeager died Monday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement, calling the death "a tremendous loss to our nation.". But he joined a flight program for enlisted men in July 1942, figuring it would get him out of kitchen detail and guard duty. In a tweet from Yeager's . Yeager never sought the spotlight and was always a bit gruff. Chuck Yeager, the American test pilot who became the first person to break the sound barrier and was later immortalised in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, has died aged 97. [24] Yeager said both pilots bailed out. He'd been fighting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) for some time and that is believed to be the cause of his death, although no official statement has been released. "He got himself shot down and he escaped," van der Linden says. And on 1 October and 14 October 1947 at Muroc and latterly 15 minutes before Yeager the test pilot George Welch, diving his XP-86 Sabre jet, probably passed Mach 1. Yeager's death was announced on his official. Chuck Yeager Dies At Age Of 97 - KXL Yeager never forgot his roots and West Virginia named bridges, schools and Charlestons airport after him. Pilot Chuck Yeager Dies At 97, Had 'The Right Stuff' And Then Some The legend grew, culminating with secular canonisation in Tom Wolfes book The Right Stuff (1979), a romance on the birth of the US space programme, on Yeager himself, and even on Panchos (and its foul-mouthed female proprietor, Florence Pancho Barnes). There is anecdotal evidence that American pilot, Yeager received the DSM in the Army design, since the. His feat put General Yeager in the headlines for a time, but he truly became a national celebrity only after the publication of Mr. Wolfes book The Right Stuff in 1979, about the early days of the space program, and the release of the movie based on it four years later, in which General Yeager was played by Sam Shepard. Yeager later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Renowned test pilot Chuck Yeager dies - Edwards Air Force Base After World War II, he became a test pilot beginning at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He was 97. Chuck Yeager, WWII test pilot who broke the sound barrier, dies at 97 [52], On November 20, 1953, the U.S. Navy program involving the D-558-II Skyrocket and its pilot, Scott Crossfield, became the first team to reach twice the speed of sound. By. The Air Force kept the feat a secret, an outgrowth of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, but in December 1947, Aviation Week magazine revealed that the sound barrier had been broken; the Air Force finally acknowledged it in June 1948. An incredible life well lived, Americas greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever.. He flew more than 150 military aircraft, logging more than 10,000 hours in the air. In April 1962, Yeager made his only flight with Neil Armstrong. She gave no details on the cause of her husbands death. They're suing", "C.A. A World War II fighter ace and Air Force general, he was, according to Tom Wolfe, the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff.. Aviation Remembers Chuck Yeager - AVweb Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager died Dec. 7. It's your job.". Yeager ended his tour credited with shooting down 13 planes, including five victories in one mission. My beginnings back in West Virginia tell who I am to this day, Yeager wrote. I was just a lucky kid who caught the right ride, he said. In the hours since the announcement broke on social media, fellow aviators, historians, VIPs, and others have weighed in on Yeager's legacy. He finished the war with 11.5 official victories, including one of the first air-to-air victories over a jet fighter, a German Messerschmitt Me 262 that he shot down as it was on final approach for landing. She and the four children of his first marriage survive him. In the decade that followed, he helped usher in the age of military jets and spaceflight. [22] Eisenhower, after gaining permission from the War Department to decide the requests, concurred with Yeager and Glover. Chuck Yeager dies at 97, Air Force pilot who first broke speed of sound. Sure, I was apprehensive, he said in 1968. Thanks for contacting us. His decorations included the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Bronze Star. She was 82. Another son, Michael, died in 2011. From his family's words . "It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you. He was 97. He was 97. He named his aircraft Glamorous Glen[15][16] after his girlfriend, Glennis Faye Dickhouse, who became his wife in February 1945. Yeager had gained one victory before he was shot down over France in his first aircraft (P-51B-5-NA s/n 43-6763) on March 5, 1944, on his eighth mission. Gen. Chuck Yeager, first person to break the sound barrier, dies at 97 Chuck Yeager, 1st to break sound barrier, dies at 97 One of Yeager's jobs during this time was to assist Pakistani technicians in installing AIM-9 Sidewinders on PAF's Shenyang F-6 fighters. [42] The success of the mission was not announced to the public for nearly eight months, until June 10, 1948. In 2003 Yeager married Victoria DAngelo. Wells died Wednesday of illness related to COVID-19. In his portrayal of the astronauts of NASAs Mercury program, Mr. Wolfe wrote about the post-World War II test pilot fraternity in Californias desert and its notion that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness to pull it back in the last yawning moment and then go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day., That quality, understood but unspoken, Mr. Wolfe added, would entitle a pilot to be part of the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.. Gen. Chuck Yeager, along with his remains, to his funeral in West . It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET, Victoria Yeager wrote on her husbands verified Twitter account. Yeager went into the history books after his flight in the Bell X-1 experimental rocket plane in 1947. A message posted to his Twitter account says, "Fr @VictoriaYeage11 It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. He was worried that the injury would remove him from the mission and reported that he went to a civilian doctor in nearby Rosamond, who taped his ribs. Chuck Yeager, pilot who was first to break sound barrier, dies at 97 until her death on Dec. 22, 1990. His wife, Victoria, announced . How much does Vegas believe in Dubs to repeat? [65][67] Yeager recalled "the Pakistanis whipped the Indians asses in the sky the Pakistanis scored a three-to-one kill ratio, knocking out 102 Russian-made Indian jets and losing 34 airplanes of their own". The Ughknown was a poke through Jell-O. Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. It was a matter of keeping them from falling apart, Yeager said. Published: Dec. 7, 2020 at 7:56 PM PST. Read about our approach to external linking. . Chuck Yeager, a folksy, hard-living daredevil who was the first aviator to break the sound barrier and became a symbol of bravery for generations of test pilots, astronauts and average Americans . Based in the Philippines, he flew Canberra bomber missions during the Vietnam war. [53][e], Yeager was foremost a fighter pilot and held several squadron and wing commands. An incredible life well lived, America's greatest Pilot, & a legacy of . Norm Healey was visiting from Canada and reading about Yeager's accomplishments. [67] In one instance in 1972, while visiting the No. General Yeager, center,in front of his P-51 Mustang with his ground crew when he was an Army Air Forces fighter pilot in Europe. Chuck Yeager, Air Force officer who broke speed of sound, dies at 97 Yeager married 45-year-old Victoria Scott DAngelo in 2003. rules against Chuck Yeager's daughter in dispute with stepmother", "Chuck Yeager, who made history for breaking the sound barrier, dies at 97", "Chuck Yeager, pilot who broke the sound barrier, dies at 97", Biography in the National Aviation Hall of Fame, General Chuck Yeager, USAF, Biography and Interview, "Chuck Yeager & the Sound Barrier" in Aerospaceweb.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chuck_Yeager&oldid=1142035779, United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War, People from Lincoln County, West Virginia, Recipients of the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States), Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army), Survivors of aviation accidents or incidents, United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II, Pages using cite court with unknown parameters, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Yeager, Chuck, Bob Cardenas, Bob Hoover, Jack Russell and James Young, This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 04:40. 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. On later visits, he often buzzed the town. In 1974, Yeager received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Yeager enlisted in the Army Air Corps after graduating from high school in 1941. Yeager's success was later immortalised in the Tom Wolfe book The Right Stuff, and a subsequent film of the same name. Chuck Yeager: First pilot to fly supersonic dies aged 97 He flew his 61st and final mission on January 15, 1945, and returned to the United States in early February 1945. In addition to his flying skills, Yeager also had "better than perfect" vision: 20/10. Other pilots who have been suggested as unproven possibilities to have exceeded the sound barrier before Yeager were all flying in a steep dive for the supposed occurrence. He reportedly could see enemy fighters from 50 miles away and ended up fighting in several wars. In 2016, when General Yeager was asked on Twitter what made him want to become a pilot, the reply was infused with cheeky levity: I was in maintenance, saw pilots had beautiful girls on their arms, didnt have dirty hands, so I applied.. [3] When he was five years old, his family moved to Hamlin, West Virginia. [94] He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1981. "He cleared me for combat after D Day, because all the free Frenchmen Maquis and people like that had surfaced". XBB.1.5 Now Predominant COVID-19 Variant In Oregon. [92] Despite his lack of higher education, West Virginia's Marshall University named its highest academic scholarship the Society of Yeager Scholars in his honor. Among the flights he made after breaking the sound barrier was one on Dec. 12. Ive flown 341 types of military planes in every country in the world and logged about 18,000 hours, he said in an interview in the January 2009 issue of Mens Journal. Yeager continued working on the X-1 and the X1A, in which he became the second man, after Scott Crossfield, to fly at twice the speed of sound, Mach 2.44, on 12 December 1953. Chuck Yeager, first to break the sound barrier, dies at 97 This story has been shared 126,899 times. What's the least exercise we can get away with? The X-1A came along six years later, and it flew at twice the speed of sound. At the age of 89 he co-piloted a McDonnell Douglas F15 Eagle fighter out of Nellis air force base in southern Nevada. Video, 'Trump or bust' - grassroots Republicans are still loyal, "It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. But life continued much the same at Muroc. 'It was', he later wrote, 'the Indian way of giving Uncle Sam the finger'". After they were bested, Ridley and Yeager decided to beat rival Crossfield's speed record in a series of test flights that they dubbed "Operation NACA Weep". [119], Yeager appeared in a Texas advertisement for George H. W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. He enlisted in the Army Air Forces out of high school in September 1941, becoming an airplane mechanic. Yeager married 45-year-old Victoria Scott D'Angelo in 2003. The first time he went up in a plane, he was sick to his stomach. He was also a consultant on several Yeager-themed video games.