A barrier-breaking icon
Charles “Chuck” Yeager, the World War II fighter pilot ace and test pilot, became the first person to fly faster than sound in 1947. He died at 97.
GRASS VALLEY, Calif. — Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles “Chuck” Yeager, 97, the World War II fighter pilot ace and quintessential test pilot who showed he had the “right stuff” when in 1947 he became the first person to fly faster than sound, has died.
Yeager died Monday, his wife, Victoria Yeager, said on his Twitter account.
“It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever.”
Yeager’s death is “a tremendous loss to our nation,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.
“Gen. Yeager’s pioneering and innovative spirit advanced America’s abilities in the sky and set our nation’s dreams soaring into the jet age and the space age. He said, ‘ You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done,’ ” Bridenstine said.
“In an age of media-made heroes, he is the real deal,” Edwards Air Force Base historian Jim Young said in August 2006 at the unveiling of a bronze statue of Yeager.
He was “the most righteous of all those with the right stuff,” said Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke, commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards.
Yeager, from a small town in the hills of West Virginia, flew for more than 60 years, including piloting an F-15 to near 1,000 mph at Edwards in October 2002 at age 79.
“Living to a ripe old age is
not an end in itself. The trick is to enjoy the years remaining,” he said in “Yeager: An Autobiography.”
“I haven’t yet done everything, but by the time I’m finished, I won’t have missed much,” he wrote. “If I auger in (crash) tomorrow, it won’t be with a frown on my face. I’ve had a ball.”
On Oct. 14, 1947, Yeager, then a 24-year-old captain, pushed an orange, bulletshaped Bell X-1 rocket plane past 660 mph to break the sound barrier, at the time a daunting aviation milestone.
“Sure, I was apprehen
sive,” he said in 1968. “But you don’t let that affect your job.”
Yeager nicknamed the rocket plane, and all his other aircraft, “Glamorous Glennis” for his first wife.
His exploits were told in Tom Wolfe’s book “The Right Stuff” and in the 1983 film it inspired.
Yeager enlisted in the Army Air Corps after graduating from high school in 1941. He later regretted that his lack of a college education prevented him from becoming an astronaut.
He started off as an aircraft mechanic and, despite
becoming severely airsick during his first airplane ride, signed up for a program that allowed enlisted men to become pilots.
Yeager shot down 13 German planes on 64 missions during World War II, including five on a single mission. He was shot down over German-held France but escaped with the help of French partisans.
After World War II, he became a test pilot at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
He returned to combat during the Vietnam War, flying several missions a month in twin-engine B-57 Canberras, making bombing and strafing runs over South Vietnam.
Yeager was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985.
He married Glennis Dickhouse in 1945. She died of ovarian cancer in 1990. They had four children: Donald, Michael, Sharon and Susan.
Yeager married Victoria Scott D’Angelo in 2003.