First pilot to break the sound barrier epitomised the space race’s ‘right stuff’
Chuck Yeager, who has died aged 97, was aWorld War II fighter ace who became the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound, epitomising the derring-do that Tom Wolfe celebrated as The Right Stuff.
Considered the greatest test pilot by many contemporaries, Yeager said he never had an interest in becoming an astronaut, a role he mocked as ‘‘little more than Spam in the can’’. Still, he trained and inspired many fellow US test pilots who pioneered space exploration.
Yeager’s 20/10 vision enabled him to ‘‘see forever’’, in the words of fellow flier Clarence ‘‘Bud’’ Anderson. He began building his legend in World
War II when he downed five
German planes in one day. He sealed his place in history in
1947, at 24, when he became the first person to fly at supersonic speed.
The attempt to break the ominously named ‘‘sound barrier’’ was carried out with Cold War secrecy and intensity because of its implications for air combat. The US Air Force picked Yeager to pilot the experimental Bell X-1 rocket ship at Muroc Lake, in California’s Mojave Desert, now Edwards Air Force Base.
The plan was to push closer and closer to the speed of sound – Mach 1, or roughly 665mph (1070kmh) at the cruising altitude of today’s passenger planes – over the course of numerous tests. The gradual approach was deemed necessary to study the shock waves that caused extreme turbulence as a vehicle approached supersonic speed.
Yeager arrived for his ninth flight on October 14, 1947, in pain from two broken ribs suffered while horse-riding. Already impatient with the programme’s pace, he declined to disclose his discomfort.
‘‘I suppose there were advantages in creeping up on Mach 1,’’ he recalled in his 1985 memoir, ‘‘but my vote was to stop screwing around before we had some stupid accident that could cost us not only amission, but the entire project.’’
The flight plan that day called for the X-1 – named Glamorous Glennis, after Yeager’s wife at the time – to reach 0.97 Mach.
At 20,000ft, it detached from the B-29 bomber that had carried it. Yeager activated rocket boosters that propelled it to 42,000ft. With 30 per cent of his fuel still remaining, he activated another booster to reach 0.96 Mach. ‘‘I noticed that the faster I got, the smoother the ride,’’ he said. ‘‘Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. Itwent up to 0.965 Mach, then tipped right off the scale. I thought Iwas seeing things!’’
Measurements showed he had reached Mach 1.06, about 1120kmh. The accompanying sonic boom notified the ground crew that Yeager had made history. ‘‘I was thunderstruck,’’ he wrote. ‘‘After all the anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to be a perfectly paved speedway.’’
Officials withheld confirmation of the accomplishment for more than half a year. By then, four other test pilots had joined the supersonic club.
Yeager’s celebrity blossomed thanks to The Right Stuff, the 1979 book by Tom Wolfe about the pilots who began the US space programme. Wolfe said Yeager’s folksy, calm West Virginia drawl became the standard for US airline pilots, whether announcing a delayed takeoff or an emergency landing. Actor Sam Shepard played Yeager in the 1983 movie.
Famously brusque, Yeager didn’t buy into the idea that some people are born with the ‘‘Right Stuff’’. ‘‘I was born with unusually good eyes and coordination,’’ hewrote. ‘‘I was mechanically oriented, understood machines easily. My nature was to stay cool in tight spots. Is that ‘the right stuff’?’’
Charles Elwood Yeager was born in Myra, West Virginia, a self-described hillbilly ‘‘from so far up the holler, they had to pipe daylight to me’’. From his father, a gas driller, he learned auto-mechanic skills that he would later apply to aircraft.
After graduating from high school in 1941,
he enlisted in the US Army Air Corps – the forerunner to the US Air Force – and was a mechanic when he was selected for pilot training in July 1942.
In March 1944, on his eighth combat mission, he was shot down over Germanoccupied France. Members of the Resistance helped him cross the Pyrenees into Spain. He flew 64 combat missions during the war, earning a promotion to captain.
Back in the US, he was picked for the rigorous test-pilot programme. Albert Boyd, the flight testing chief, said: ‘‘We had several other outstanding pilots to choose from, but none of them could quite match his skill in a cockpit or his coolness under pressure.’’
After breaking the sound barrier, Yeager continued as a test pilot during what he called ‘‘the golden age of flying and fun’’, from 1947 to 1954. In 1963, flying the experimental Lockheed Starfighter at more than twice the speed of sound, he lost control and had to eject moments before the plane crashed. He suffered severe burns on his face and fingers.
He retired from the air force in 1975 as a brigadier general. Congress awarded him a Medal of Honour in 1976.
He had four children with the former Glennis Dickhouse, whom he married in 1945. She died in 1990. In 2003 he married the former Victoria Scott D’Angelo. –
He had no interest in becoming an astronaut, a role he mocked as ‘‘little more than Spam in the can’’.