Chuck Yeager

American aviator

• Born: February 13, 1923
• Birthplace: Myra, West Virginia
• Died: December 7, 2020
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Yeager, one of the best-known American pilots of all time, was an accomplished wartime aviator during World War II and the first pilot to break the sound barrier in level flight.

Early Life

Born into a rural family, Chuck Yeager (YAY-gur) spent his early years working with his father in the family gas-drilling business near Hamlin, West Virginia. Like his father, Yeager was mechanically inclined, and he developed the skill to repair and maintain complex machinery, an advantage that later served him well. Yeager lived a normal Depression-era existence, graduating from high school in Hamlin just as the United States entered World War II in December, 1941.

Yeager’s first experience with aviation was rather inauspicious. As a teenager, he had observed a damaged airplane make an emergency landing near his home, leaving the future pilot unimpressed with the prospects of flight. With the United States at war, however, he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces (AAF) and became an airplane mechanic at a base in California. In 1942 he enrolled in the Flying Sergeant Program, a course designed to attract skilled enlisted men into the pilot ranks. Bored with repair work and attracted by the higher rank and monthly pay, Yeager entered the program, graduating in early 1943.

Initially, the AAF trained Yeager and the other pilots of his first unit, the 357th Fighter Squadron, to fly the P-39 Airacobra fighter. The P-39 proved an unsuccessful aircraft, however, and Yeager was reassigned to the 363rd Fighter Squadron equipped with the more successful P-51 Mustang fighter. In November 1943, Yeager arrived at his first combat base, a British Royal Air Force facility at Leiston, England.

Life’s Work

Yeager flew his first combat mission in early 1944 in his P-51 that he nicknamed the Glamorous Glenn for his girlfriend back home, Glennis Dickhouse. On March 4, on his seventh combat mission, Yeager downed his first enemy aircraft, a German Messerschmitt Me 109 fighter. The next day, however, Yeager tangled with three German fighters in combat over Bordeaux, France, and was shot down. Evading capture by the Germans, Yeager made contact with the Maquis, an underground group resisting the German occupation of France. The Maquis hid Yeager from the Germans for nearly three weeks until late-winter snows melted and the group could move Yeager across the Pyrenees Mountains into neutral Spain. Yeager repaid the Maquis by instructing them how to fuse plastic explosives, one of the many mechanical skills Yeager had acquired as a youngster.

Once returned to England, Yeager found himself in a dilemma. Army rules forbade pilots rescued by the Maquis or other resistance groups from again flying combat missions. The Army feared that if a pilot was shot down a second time, the Germans might be able to extract information about the Maquis. Faced with losing his flight status, Yeager and another escaped pilot, Frederick Glover, pled their case to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe. While Eisenhower pondered Yeager’s fate, Yeager downed his second aircraft, a German Junkers Ju 88 bomber, over the English Channel. Eisenhower eventually returned both Yeager and Glover to duty, and Yeager returned to his squadron, now with the rank of lieutenant.

Once back in the war, Yeager added to his total of destroyed German planes. On October 12, 1944, he shot down five German fighters in a single day. A month later, he became one of the few Allied pilots to shoot down a fearsome German Me 262 fighter. The first jet fighter to enter combat, the Me 262 could fly 150 mph faster than Yeager’s P-51, but Yeager caught the German fighter in its final airfield approach and shot the vulnerable German aircraft out of the sky.

With the air war starting to wind down, Yeager flew his final combat mission on January 14, 1945, and returned to the United States to report for duty at Wright Field, Ohio. Yeager, now a captain, married Glennis on February 26.

Uncertain about his future, Yeager assumed his duties at Wright Field. His primary task was to test-fly repaired aircraft, and he had the opportunity to demonstrate his flying skills in a number of different aircraft. His versatility and mechanical skills caught the attention of Colonel Albert Boyd, head of the Aeronautical Systems Flight Test Division at Wright Field, who invited Yeager to become a test pilot. Yeager accepted the invitation and transferred to Muroc Airfield (now Edwards Air Force Base) in California.

Among Yeager’s early projects was the X-1, an experimental aircraft built by Bell Aircraft Corporation to study high-speed flight. The goal of the X-1 project was to break the sound barrier and fly beyond the speed of sound (supersonic speed). Bell Aircraft and its test pilot, Chalmers Goodlin, were initially in charge of the project, but the Air Force (the Army Air Force became the Air Force in 1947) believed the project was moving too slowly. When Goodlin demanded hazard pay for the risky flights, the Air Force took over the project and made Yeager the main test pilot.

The Air Force planned a flight to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947. Two days before the flight, however, Yeager broke two of his ribs in a horseback-riding accident. Afraid the Air Force would find another pilot, Yeager told only his wife, and project engineer-pilot Jack Ridley, about the injury. On the day of the flight above the Mojave Desert in Southern California, Ridley helped Yeager into the X-1 and provided part of a broom handle for Yeager to use as a lever to close the inside aircraft hatch. Yeager was able to secure himself into the aircraft and complete the flight, reaching a top speed of Mach 1.07 (700 mph). Due to national security concerns, the facts of Yeager’s history-making flight did not become public for several months. Once the flight became public, Yeager became a national celebrity and was awarded both the MacKay and Collier Trophies for his achievement.

Although less newsworthy than breaking the sound barrier, Yeager had many other achievements during his Air Force career. During the Korean War, Yeager was one of a handful of pilots to test-fly a Soviet-built MiG 15 fighter that had been flown to South Korea by a defecting North Korean pilot. In 1953, Yeager participated in a number of research flights that continuously set new speed records, culminating with a flight that reached Mach 2.44 in October. For the rest of the 1950s, Yeager commanded US fighter squadrons based in Germany, France, and Spain.

Yeager's wife, Glennis, died in 1999. Yeager married his second wife, Victoria Scott D'Angelo, in 2003. In 2012, at the age of eighty-nine, he celebrated the sixty-fifth anniversary of breaking the sound bearing by doing it again, taking off from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada in an F-15 Eagle. He lives in Penn Valley, California, near Sacramento.

Significance

With the US-Soviet space race just beginning during the 1950s, Yeager was primed to become the leading adviser to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the space program itself. Although he was not an astronaut, he did serve as the first commanding officer of the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School, which provided trained pilots for NASA and the Air Force.

Yeager’s test-flight days would end in 1963, when he was badly burned in an accident while flying an NF-104 aircraft, but he recovered enough from his injuries to fly once again during the Vietnam War. He commanded the 405th Fighter Wing in 1966, flying 127 combat missions over Vietnam with the rank of brigadier general. He then served in several administrative posts until his retirement from the Air Force in 1975. In 1986, U.S. president Ronald Reagan appointed Yeager to the investigative team looking into the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

Yeager, whose very name has become synonymous with risky, but necessary, flight, excelled at meeting challenges and accomplishing great feats. Moreover, he achieved notoriety by repeatedly risking his life in incredibly dangerous situations. Even when given the option of taking the safe path, such as the option of going home after being shot down in World War II, Yeager saw challenges as jobs to be done. By accomplishing his great tasks, Yeager furthered the causes of aviation and space travel in the late twentieth century, becoming a legend in the process.

Bibliography

Caygill, Peter. Sound Barrier: The Rocky Road to Mach 1.0+. Barnsley, Eng.: Pen & Sword, 2006. Print.

Courtwright, David. Sky as Frontier: Adventure, Aviation, and Empire. College Station: Texas A&M P, 2005. Print.

Darling, David J. The Rocket Man: And Other Extraordinary Characters in the History of Flight. London: Oneworld, 2013. Print.

"Get the Stuff Right." Executive Leadership 28.3 (2013): 6. Business Source Complete. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

Hallion, Richard P. “The Air Force and the Supersonic Breakthrough.” Technology and the Air Force: A Retrospective Assessment. Ed. J. Neufeld, G. M. Watson, and D. Chenoweth. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1997. Print.

Hallion, Richard P., and Michael H. Gorn. On the Frontier: Experimental Flight at NASA Dryden. Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2003. Print.

"Legends of Aviation." Aviation History 22.2 (2011): 21. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

Yeager, Chuck. The Quest for Mach One: A First-Person Account of Breaking the Sound Barrier. New York: Penguin, 1997. Print.

Yeager, Chuck, with Leo Janos. Yeager: An Autobiography. New York: Bantam, 1985. Print.