Yeager was raised in Hamlin, West Virginia. His career began in World War II as a private in the United States Army, assigned to the Army Air Forces in 1941.[a] After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in September 1942, he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted to the rank of flight officer (the World War II Army Air Force version of the Army's warrant officer), later achieving most of his aerial victories as a P-51 Mustangfighter pilot on the Western Front, where he was credited with shooting down 11.5 enemy aircraft (the half credit is from a second pilot assisting him in a single shootdown). On October 12, 1944, he attained "ace in a day" status, shooting down five enemy aircraft in one mission.
After the war, Yeager became a test pilot and flew many types of aircraft, including experimental rocket-powered aircraft for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Through the NACA program, he became the first human to officially break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, when he flew the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m), for which he won both the Collier and Mackay trophies in 1948. He then went on to break several other speed and altitude records in the following years. In 1962, he became the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, which trained and produced astronauts for NASA and the Air Force.
Yeager later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. In recognition of his achievements and the outstanding performance ratings of those units, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1969 and inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973, retiring on March 1, 1975. His three-war active-duty flying career spanned more than 30 years and took him to many parts of the world, including the Korean War zone and the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.
Yeager is referred to by many as one of the greatest pilots of all time, and was ranked fifth on Flying's list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation in 2013. 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.
Early life and education
Yeager was born February 13, 1923, in Myra, West Virginia,[2] to farming parents Albert Hal Yeager (1896–1963) and Susie Mae Yeager (née Sizemore; 1898–1987).[3] When he was five years old, his family moved to Hamlin, West Virginia. Yeager had two brothers, Roy and Hal Jr., and two sisters, Doris Ann (accidentally killed at age one by four-year-old Roy playing with a firearm)[4][5][6] and Pansy Lee.
He attended Hamlin High School, where he played basketball and football, receiving his best grades in geometry and typing. He graduated from high school in June 1941.[7]
His first experience with the military was as a teen at the Citizens Military Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana, during the summers of 1939 and 1940. On February 26, 1945, Yeager married Glennis Dickhouse, and the couple had four children. Glennis Yeager died in 1990, predeceasing her husband by 30 years.[8]
Yeager enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) on September 12, 1941, and became an aircraft mechanic at George Air Force Base, Victorville, California. At enlistment, Yeager was not eligible for flight training because of his age and educational background, but the entry of the U.S. into World War II less than three months later prompted the USAAF to alter its recruiting standards. Yeager had unusually sharp vision (a visual acuity rated 20/10), which once enabled him to shoot a deer at 600 yd (550 m).[11]
At the time of his flight training acceptance, he was a crew chief on an AT-11.[12] He received his pilot wings and a promotion to flight officer at Luke Field, Arizona, where he graduated from Class 43C on March 10, 1943. Assigned to the 357th Fighter Group at Tonopah, Nevada, he initially trained as a fighter pilot, flying Bell P-39 Airacobras (being grounded for seven days for clipping a farmer's tree during a training flight),[13] and shipped overseas with the group on November 23, 1943.[14]
Stationed in the United Kingdom at RAF Leiston, Yeager flew P-51 Mustangs in combat with the 363d Fighter Squadron. 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.[17] He escaped to Spain on March 30, 1944, with the help of the Maquis (French Resistance) and returned to England on May 15, 1944. During his stay with the Maquis, Yeager assisted the guerrillas in duties that did not involve direct combat; he helped construct bombs for the group, a skill that he had learned from his father.[18] He was awarded the Bronze Star for helping a navigator, Omar M. "Pat" Patterson Jr., to cross the Pyrenees.[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. He had joined another evader, fellow P-51 pilot 1st Lt Fred Glover,[20] in speaking directly to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, on June 12, 1944.[21] "I raised so much hell that General Eisenhower finally let me go back to my squadron" Yeager said. "He cleared me for combat after D Day, because all the free Frenchmen – Maquis and people like that – had surfaced".[22] Eisenhower, after gaining permission from the War Department to decide the requests, concurred with Yeager and Glover.[23] In the meantime, Yeager shot down his second enemy aircraft, a German Junkers Ju 88 bomber, over the English Channel.[23]
P-51D-20NA, Glamorous Glen III, is the aircraft in which Yeager achieved most of his aerial victories.
Yeager demonstrated outstanding flying skills and combat leadership. On October 12, 1944, he became the first pilot in his group to make "ace in a day," downing five enemy aircraft in a single mission. Two of these victories were scored without firing a single shot: when he flew into firing position against a Messerschmitt Bf 109, the pilot of the aircraft panicked, breaking to port and colliding with his wingman.[24] Yeager said both pilots bailed out. 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.[25][26]
In his 1986 memoirs, Yeager recalled with disgust that "atrocities were committed by both sides", and said he went on a mission with orders from the Eighth Air Force to "strafe anything that moved".[27][28] During the mission briefing, he whispered to Major Donald H. Bochkay, "If we are going to do things like this, we sure as hell better make sure we are on the winning side".[27][28] Yeager said, "I'm certainly not proud of that particular strafing mission against civilians. But it is there, on the record and in my memory".[29] He also expressed bitterness at his treatment in England during World War II, describing the British as "arrogant" and "nasty" on Twitter.[30]
Yeager was commissioned a second lieutenant while at Leiston, and was promoted to captain before the end of his tour. He flew his 61st and final mission on January 15, 1945, and returned to the United States in early February 1945. As an evader, he received his choice of assignments and, because his new wife was pregnant, chose Wright Field to be near his home in West Virginia. His high number of flight hours and maintenance experience qualified him to become a functional test pilot of repaired aircraft, which brought him under the command of Colonel Albert Boyd, head of the Aeronautical Systems Flight Test Division.[31]
Post-World War II
Test pilot – breaking the sound barrier
Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, in the X-1.
Yeager stands in front of the Bell X-1 named Glamorous Glennis. He named all of his assigned aircraft in some variation after his wife.Yeager is in the Bell X-1 cockpit.
Such was the difficulty, that the answers to many of the inherent challenges were like "Yeager better have paid-up insurance".[35] Two nights before the scheduled flight date, Yeager broke two ribs when he fell from a horse. 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.[36][c] Besides his wife who was riding with him, Yeager told only his friend and fellow project pilot Jack Ridley about the accident. On the day of the flight, Yeager was in such pain that he could not seal the X-1's hatch by himself. Ridley rigged up a device, using the end of a broom handle as an extra lever, to allow Yeager to seal the hatch.[37]
Yeager continued to break many speed and altitude records. He was one of the first American pilots to fly a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, after its pilot, No Kum-sok, defected to South Korea.[50][51] Returning to Muroc, during the latter half of 1953, Yeager was involved with the USAF team that was working on the X-1A, an aircraft designed to surpass Mach 2 in level flight. That year, he flew a chase aircraft for the civilian pilot Jackie Cochran as she became the first woman to fly faster than sound.[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. 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". 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".[52]
The new record flight, however, did not entirely go to plan, since shortly after reaching Mach 2.44, Yeager lost control of the X-1A at about 80,000 ft (24,000 m) 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 (16,000 m) in less than a minute before regaining control at around 29,000 ft (8,800 m). He then managed to land without further incident.[52] For this feat, Yeager was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) in 1954.[53][e]
Military command
Yeager was Commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, with a model of the North American X-15 in 1959.
He was 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. He 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. He had only a high school education, so he was not eligible to become an astronaut like those he trained. In April 1962, Yeager made his only flight with Neil Armstrong. Their job, flying a T-33, was to evaluate Smith Ranch Dry Lake in Nevada for use as an emergency landing site for the North American X-15. In his autobiography, he wrote that he knew the lake bed was unsuitable for landings after recent rains, but Armstrong insisted on flying out anyway. As Armstrong suggested that they do a touch-and-go, Yeager advised against it, telling him "You may touch, but you ain't gonna go!" 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. They had to wait for rescue.[6]
Yeager's participation in the test pilot training program for NASA included controversial behavior. Yeager reportedly did not believe that Ed Dwight, the first African American pilot admitted into the program, should be a part of it. In the 2019 documentary series Chasing the Moon, the filmmakers made the claim that Yeager instructed staff and participants at the school that "Washington is trying to cram the nigger down our throats. [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."[57][58] In his autobiography, Dwight details how Yeager's leadership led to discriminatory treatment throughout his training at Edwards Air Force Base.[59]
Between December 1963 and January 1964, Yeager completed five flights in the NASA M2-F1lifting body. An accident during a December 1963 test flight in one of the school's NF-104s 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. This was Yeager's last attempt at setting test-flying records.[60][61][62][f]
From 1971 to 1973, at the behest of Ambassador Joseph Farland, Yeager was assigned as the Air Attache in Pakistan to advise the Pakistan Air Force which was led by Abdur Rahim Khan (the first Pakistani to break the sound barrier).[65][66][67] He arrived in Pakistan at a time when tensions with India were at a high level. 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. He also had a keen interest in interacting with PAF personnel from various Pakistani Squadrons and helping them develop combat tactics.[67] In one instance in 1972, while visiting the No. 15 Squadron "Cobras" at Peshawar Airbase, the Squadron's OCWing Commander Najeeb Khan escorted him to K2 in a pair of F-86Fs after Yeager requested a visit to the second highest mountain on Earth.[68][69] After hostilities broke out in 1971, he decided to stay in West Pakistan and continued overseeing the PAF's operations.[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".[70] During the war, he flew around the western front in a helicopter documenting wreckages of Indian aircraft of Soviet origin which included Sukhoi Su-7s and MiG-21s. These aircraft were transported to the United States after the war for analysis.[65][67][71] Yeager also flew around in his Beechcraft Queen Air, a small passenger aircraft that was assigned to him by the Pentagon, picking up shot-down Indian fighter pilots.[67][72] The Beechcraft was later destroyed during an air raid by the IAF at a Pakistani airbase when Yeager was not present.[73][74] Edward C. Ingraham, a U.S. diplomat who had served as political counselor to Ambassador Farland in Islamabad, recalled this incident in the Washington Monthly of October 1985: "After Yeager's Beechcraft was destroyed during an Indian air raid, he raged to his cowering colleagues that the Indian pilot had been specifically instructed by Indira Gandhi to blast his plane. 'It was', he later wrote, 'the Indian way of giving Uncle Sam the finger'".[75] Yeager was incensed over the incident and demanded U.S. retaliation.[65][76]
Yeager made a cameo appearance in the movie The Right Stuff (1983). He played "Fred", a bartender at "Pancho's Place", which was most appropriate, because he said, "if all the hours were ever totaled, I reckon I spent more time at her place than in a cockpit over those years".[77]Sam Shepard portrayed Yeager in the film, which chronicles in part his famous 1947 record-breaking flight.[78]
Yeager has been referenced several times in the shared Star Trek universe, including having a namesake fictional type of starship, a dangerous starship formation-maneuver named after him called the "Yeager Loop" (most notably mentioned in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The First Duty"), and appearing in archival footage within the opening title sequence for the series Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). For Enterprise, executive producer Rick Berman said that he envisaged the lead character, Captain Jonathan Archer, as being "halfway between Chuck Yeager and Han Solo".[79]
During this time, Yeager also served as a technical adviser for three Electronic Arts flight simulator video games. The games include Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer, Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer 2.0, and Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. The game manuals feature quotes and anecdotes from Yeager and were well received by players. Missions feature several of Yeager's accomplishments and let players challenge his records. Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer was Electronic Art's top-selling game for 1987.[82]
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.[84] The chase plane for the flight was an F-16 Fighting Falcon piloted by Bob Hoover, a longtime test, fighter, and aerobatic pilot who had been Yeager's wingman for the first supersonic flight.[85] At the end of his speech to the crowd in 1997, Yeager concluded, "All that I am ... I owe to the Air Force".[86] Later that month, he was the recipient of the Tony Jannus Award for his achievements.[87]
On October 14, 2012, on the 65th anniversary of breaking the sound barrier, 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.[88]
Awards and decorations
The Special Congressional Silver Medal was awarded to Yeager in 1976.
In 1973, Yeager was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, arguably aviation's highest honor. In 1974, Yeager received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[89] In December 1975, the U.S. Congress awarded Yeager a silver medal "equivalent to a noncombat Medal of Honor ... for contributing immeasurably to aerospace science by risking his life in piloting the X-1 research airplane faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947". President Gerald Ford presented the medal to Yeager in a ceremony at the White House on December 8, 1976.[90][g]
Yeager never attended college and was often modest about his background, but is considered by many, including Flying Magazine, the California Hall of Fame, the State of West Virginia, National Aviation Hall of Fame, a few U.S. presidents, and the United States Army Air Force, to be one of the greatest pilots of all time. Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine ranked him the fifth greatest pilot of all time in 2003.[92] Regardless of his lack of higher education, West Virginia's Marshall University named its highest academic scholarship the Society of Yeager Scholars in his honor. He was the chairman of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)'s Young Eagle Program from 1994 to 2004, and was named the program's chairman emeritus.[93]
The Civil Air Patrol, the volunteer auxiliary of the USAF, awards the Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager Award to its senior members as part of its Aerospace Education program.[100]
On October 14, 2012, Yeager co-piloted a new Glamorous Glennis IIIF-15D Eagle to commemorate the 65th anniversary of his historic flight.
Yeager named his plane after his wife, Glennis, as a good-luck charm: "You're my good-luck charm, hon. Any airplane I name after you always brings me home."[117] Yeager and Glennis moved to Grass Valley, California, after his retirement from the Air Force in 1975. The couple prospered as a result of Yeager's best-selling autobiography, speaking engagements, and commercial ventures.[118] Glennis Yeager died of ovarian cancer in 1990. They had four children (Susan, Don, Mickey, and Sharon).[119] Yeager's son Mickey (Michael) died unexpectedly in Oregon, on March 26, 2011.[120]
Yeager appeared in a Texas advertisement for George H. W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign.[121]
In 2000, Yeager met actress Victoria Scott D'Angelo on a hiking trail in Nevada County. The pair started dating shortly thereafter, and married in August 2003.[122] A bitter dispute arose between Yeager, his children, and D'Angelo. The children contended that she, at least 35 years Yeager's junior, had married him for his fortune. Yeager and D'Angelo both denied the charge. Litigation ensued, in which his children accused D'Angelo of "undue influence" on Yeager, and Yeager accused his children of diverting millions of dollars from his assets.[123] In August 2008, the California Court of Appeal ruled for Yeager, finding that his daughter Susan had breached her duty as trustee.[124][125]
Yeager lived in Grass Valley, Northern California and died in the afternoon of December 7, 2020 (National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day), at age 97, in a Los Angeles hospital.[126][127] Following his death, President Donald Trump issued a statement of condolences stating Yeager "was one of the greatest pilots in history, a proud West Virginian, and an American original who relentlessly pushed the boundaries of human achievement".[128]
^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 AT-11. He related that he became very sick on the flight: "After puking all over myself I said, 'Yeager, you made a big mistake'".[1]
^Chuck Yeager is not related to Jeana Yeager, one of the two pilots of the Rutan Voyager aircraft, which circled the world without landing or refueling.[10]
^In some versions of the story, the doctor was a veterinarian; however, local residents have noted that Rosamond was so small that it had neither a medical doctor nor a veterinarian.[36]
^Yeager was the first confirmed to break the sound barrier, and the first by any measure to do it in level flight. 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. There is anecdotal evidence that American pilot George Welch may have broken the sound barrier two weeks before Yeager, while diving an XP-86 Sabre on October 1, 1947, and again on October 14, just 30 minutes before Yeager's X-1 flight. However, the precision instruments used to carefully document the speed of Yeager's flight were not used during Welch's flights.[39] Even earlier, German pilot Lothar Sieber was estimated to have broken the speed of sound during his fatal test-flight of the rocket-powered Bachem Natter on March 1, 1945, although the speed was not officially measured.[40] In his 1990 book Me-163, former Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet pilot Mano Ziegler claims that his friend, test pilot Heini Dittmar, broke the sound barrier and that on July 6, 1944, he reached 1,130 km/h in dive, and that several people on the ground heard the sonic booms. There was also a disputed claim by German pilot Hans Guido Mutke that he was the first person to break the sound barrier, on April 9, 1945, in a Messerschmitt Me 262.[41]
^The movie The Right Stuff implies that Yeager took the NF-104 on a spur-of-the-moment, unauthorized flight. In reality, it was a part of a scheduled series of test flights.
^This is apparently a unique award, as the law that created it states it is equivalent to a noncombat Medal of Honor. It is referred to as a Special Congressional Silver Medal in the President's Daily Diary, which also has a list of ceremony attendees.[91]
References
^"My First Time". Air & Space/Smithsonian. Vol. 17, no. 2. June–July 2002. p. 48.
^Houvouras, John H. (Winter 1998). "The Man"(PDF). The Huntington Quarterly. p. 21. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 23, 2015. Retrieved April 14, 2015.
^Kantowski, Ron (April 6, 2006). "Q+A Steve Yeager". Las Vegas Sun. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2016. He's not my uncle, he's a cousin. That's a misprint. You can't believe everything you read.
^Disney, Ryan (2016). Escape & Evasion Report No. 686: The True Story of an American Fighter Pilot's Escape from Nazi-Occupied France. Amazon Digital Services. ASINB01N9LBA0H.
^Niderost, Eric (June 21, 2017). "Chuck Yeager: Fighter Pilot". Warfare History Network. Archived from the original on March 29, 2018. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
^"Encounter Report". November 6, 1944. Archived from the original on February 22, 2018. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
^ abSamuel, Wolfgang W. E. (2004). American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p. 454. ISBN978-1-57806-649-0.
^ abCoady, C. A. J. (2008). Morality and Political Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 13. ISBN978-0-521-70548-6.
^Clark, Mark (1954). From the Danube to the Yalu. New York: Harper. p. 208.
^Kum-Suk, No; Osterholm, J. Roger (2007). A MiG-15 to Freedom: Memoir of the Wartime North Korean Defector who First Delivered the Secret Fighter Jet to the Americans in 1953. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. p. 158. ISBN978-0-7864-0210-6.
^Stone, Robert (Writer, Director, Producer) (2019). Chasing The Moon Episode 1 [It Took Millions of Steps to Make One Giant Leap] (DVD). WGBH Educational Foundation. Event occurs at 1:18:05. ISBN9781531709419. OCLC1531709419. AE61703.
^Ed Dwight (2009). Soaring on the Wings of a Dream: The Struggles & Adventures of the "First Black Astronaut" Candidate". Ed Dwight Studios, Inc. pp. 213–219. ISBN9780984149506.
^Group Captain (R) Husseini & Pakistan Air Force. "Trauma & Reconstruction (1971-1980)". PAF over the Years (Revised ed.). Directorate of Media Affairs, Pakistan Air Force. p. 95.
Yeager, Chuck, Bob Cardenas, Bob Hoover, Jack Russell and James Young The Quest for Mach One: A First-Person Account of Breaking the Sound Barrier New York: Penguin Studio, 1997 ISBN0-670-87460-4
Yeager, Chuck and Leo Janos, Yeager: An Autobiography New York: Bantam, 1985 ISBN978-0-553-25674-1
External links
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