Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager became the most famous aviator since Charles Lindburgh when word was finally leaked that he had broken the sound barrier in a Bell X1 rocket plane dropped from a B-29 on October 14, 1947.
Yeager was already a noted World War II fighter pilot ace who was credited with 13 downed German planes in 63 missions over Europe in P-51 Mustangs. Yeager had gained one victory before he was shot down over France in his first aircraft on March 5, 1944, on his eighth mission. He escaped to Spain on March 30, 1944, with the help of the French Resistance and returned to England on May 15, 1944. After D-Day he received the personal approval of Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower he rejoined his squadron and began racking up victories in his new plane named Glamorous Glennis after his girlfriend, Glennis Faye Dickhouse, who became his first wife in February 1945. His victories included 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.
He was repelled by orders late in the War to “shoot everything that moves” on a staffing mission against civilian refugees. He obeyed the orders but later wrote: “I’m certainly not proud of that particular strafing mission against civilians. But it is there, on the record and in my memory.”
After the War Yeager became an unofficial test pilot flying repaired aircraft under the command of Colonel Albert Boyd, head of the Aeronautical Systems Flight Test Division. That led to graduation from Air Materiel Command Flight Performance School and assignment to Muroc Army Airfield (now Edwards Air Force Base.)
When Bell Aircraft civilian test pilot, Chalmers “Slick” Goodlin demanded $150,000 (equivalent to $1,970,000 in 2022) to break the sound barrier, which many believed could cause the destruction of the aircraft. Yeager was tapped by the Brass to replace him for his regular pay. Before the mission was flown, the USAAF became the separate U. S. Air Force.
Two nights before the scheduled date for the flight, Yeager broke two ribs when he fell from a horse. He kept it a secret from his commanders for fear of being scrubbed for the mission. The day he flew he was in such pain that he could not seal the canopy from inside. A broomstick was used as an extra lever, to allow Yeager to seal the hatch.
The X-1, also named Glamorous Glennis, was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude). The rocket plane was designed with thin, unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a .50-caliber bullet.
Despite extreme turbulence, Yeager caused a sonic boom when he broke the limit and continued in smooth flight.
Reports of the flight leaked to the press in December 1947, but because of the secrecy of the project, Bell and Yeager’s achievement was not officially confirmed until June 1948. Yeager continued to serve as a test pilot, and in 1953 he flew 1,650 miles per hour in an X-1A rocket plane.
The new record flight, however, did not go as planned. Shortly after reaching Mach 2.44, Yeager lost control of the X-1A at about 80,000 ft due to inertia coupling, a phenomenon largely unknown at the time. With the aircraft simultaneously rolling, pitching, and yawing out of control, Yeager dropped 51,000 ft. in less than a minute before regaining control at around 29,000 ft. He then managed to land without further incident. For this feat, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) in 1954.
Yeager went on to a number of important fighter commands in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. As a Colonel he was named 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. Since he had only a high school education, he was not eligible to become an astronaut like those he trained.
His tenure in that post was stained, however, when he attempted to drive African-American candidate Ed Dwight from the program telling other candidates, “Washington is trying to cram the nigger down our throats. 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.”
Between December 1963 and January 1964, Yeager completed five flights in the NASA M2-F1—a lightweight, unpowered prototype aircraft, developed to flight-test the wingless lifting body concept. An accident during a December 1963 test flight in one of NASA’s NF-104, a rocket boosted version of the Air Force fighter—resulted in serious injuries. After climbing to a near-record altitude, the plane’s controls became ineffective, and it entered a flat spin. After several turns, and an altitude loss of approximately 95,000 feet, Yeager ejected from the plane. During the ejection, the seat straps released normally, but the seat base slammed into Yeager, with the still-hot rocket motor breaking his helmet’s plastic faceplate and causing his emergency oxygen supply to catch fire. The resulting burns to his face required extensive and agonizing medical care. It was Yeager’s last attempt at setting test-flying records.
That experience was the opening sequence in Tom Wolf’s best seller The Right Stuff and in the subsequent film in which he was portrayed by Sam Shepard.
But Yeager was not done with war, either. In 1966, Yeager took command of the 405th Tactical Fighter Wing at Clark Air Base, the Philippines, whose squadrons were deployed on rotational temporary duty (TDY) in South Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. There he flew 127 missions. In February 1968, he was assigned command of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, and led the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II wing in South Korea during the Pueblo crisis.
Yeager was promoted to brigadier general and was assigned in July 1969 as the vice-commander of the Seventeenth Air Force.
From 1971 to 1973Yeager was assigned as the Air Attache in Pakistan to advise the Pakistan Air Force. He arrived there when tensions with India were at a high level. One of Yeager’s jobs during this time was to assist technicians in installing AIM-9 Sidewinders on PAF’s Shenyang F-6 fighters. He also had a keen interest in interacting with PAF personnel from various Pakistani Squadrons and helping them develop combat tactics. After hostilities broke out in 1971, he decided to stay in West Pakistan and continued overseeing the PAF’s operations. 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.” During the war, he flew around the western front in a helicopter documenting wreckages of Indian warplanes of Soviet origin which included Sukhoi Su-7s and MiG-21s and they were transported to the United States after the war for analysis. He also flew his Beechcraft Queen Air, a small passenger aircraft that was assigned to him by the Pentagon, picking up shot-down Indian fighter pilots.
On March 1, 1975, following assignments in West Germany, Yeager retired from the Air Force at Norton Air Force Base, California.
He was much honored in retirement and achieved the status of a modern folk hero. Many considered him to be the greatest pilot of all time.
On October 14, 1997, on the 50th anniversary of his historic flight past Mach 1, he flew a new Glamorous Glennis III, an F-15D Eagle, past Mach 1. Then on October 14, 2012, on the 65th anniversary, Yeager did it again at the age of 89, flying as co-pilot in a McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle piloted by Captain David Vincent out of Nellis Air Force Base.
Yeager died on December 7, 2020 at age 97 in Los Angeles.
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