On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager’s Bell X-1 rocket airplane dropped from the belly of a B-29 bomber. Seconds later, Yeager entered the history books as the first pilot to break the sound barrier.
Dude was already famous, as during World War II, he had flown 64 combat missions over Europe and, in a single dogfight, had killed 13 Germans. In his eighth mission, he had been shot down over German-occupied France.
After the war, he served in California as a test pilot for high-speed planes. A year after breaking the sound barrier, he visited Charleston, West Virginia, and gave the people a show they would never forget. During a boat race on the Kanawha River, he flew his Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star jet beneath Charleston’s South Side Bridge.
Yeager retired from the Air Force in 1975 as a brigadier general. Thirty years later, President George W. Bush promoted Yeager to the rank of major general. In 2012, on the 65th anniversary of his record-setting flight, he again broke the sound barrier—this time, at age 89. Bad assery personified.
Gen. Yeager was a frequent guest at a neighbor's house where I used to live. He's a gentleman and a warrior of the highest order.
ReplyDeleteI think that is supposed to be Charleston, West Virginia.
ReplyDeleteI think that is supposed to be Charleston, West Virginia.
ReplyDeleteThanks, corrected!
DeleteI was an officer candidate being x. officer candidate turns out to be a state of being. My world was constrained on the dark side by a Marine Staff Sergeant who rode his motorcyle to visit us every morning at 0500 led us in the daily dozen and the 5 mile run to the destroyer piers and back and drank every night until 0430. He also told some of the most amusing stories you ever heard about boot camp and Bonano and being a Marine skilled marksman in Vietnam. He said he was a sniper. Frankly, anything Staff Sergeant Brooks says, I'll take on faith. I read "The Right Stuff" during my time with Brooks at the Naval Science Institute.
ReplyDeleteStill and all, it is really hard to believe that General Yeager is still with us. 1947. And then he went on to fame and fortune. OK, one but not the other.
Sir, over there. Is that a man? Yeah, you damn right it is. (The Right Stuff)
ReplyDelete