[70] 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; they were transported to the United States after the war for analysis. Yeager's most notable achievement was piloting the X-1 experimental rocket plane, in which he became the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound in 1947, shortly after the founding of the U.S. Air Force as a separate service. Yeager had two brothers, Roy and Hal Jr., and two sisters, Doris Ann (accidentally killed at age two by six-year-old Roy playing with a firearm)[4][5][6] and Pansy Lee. He accomplished the feat in a Bell X-1, a wild, high-flying rocket-propelled orange airplane that he nicknamed "Glamorous Glennis," after his first wife who died in 1990. Yeager married 45-year-old Victoria Scott D'Angelo in 2003. This was the sound barrier, which no aviator had crossed and lived to tell the tale. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager, a military test pilot who was the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound and live to tell about it, died Dec. 7. Chuck Yeager, the historic test pilot portrayed in the movie " The Right Stuff ," is dead at the age of 97, according to a tweet posted on his account late Monday. It was a matter of keeping them from falling apart, Yeager said. Brig. He named his aircraft Glamorous Glen[15][16] after his girlfriend, Glennis Faye Dickhouse, who became his wife in February 1945. "An incredible life well lived, America's greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever," his wife wrote on Monday. [100], Army of the United States(Army Air Forces), Yeager named his plane after his wife, Glennis, as a good-luck charm: "You're my good-luck charm, hon. For that same series, executive producer Rick Berman said that he envisaged the lead character, Captain Jonathan Archer, as being "halfway between Chuck Yeager and Han Solo. Gen. Charles "Chuck" Yeager, 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. 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. He married Glennis Dickhouse of Oroville, California, on Feb. 26, 1945. 2. Yeager and D'Angelo both denied the charge. [35] Two nights before the scheduled date for the flight, Yeager broke two ribs when he fell from a horse. I live just down the street from his mother, said Gene Brewer, retired publisher of the weekly Lincoln Journal. That night, he said, his family ate the goose for dinner. The society is the premier academic scholarship that . [120] But it is there, on the record and in my memory". 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. Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer was Electronic Art's top-selling game for 1987. Mike Ives and Neil Vigdor contributed reporting. Living to a ripe old age is not an end in itself. [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. He was 97. Yeager would get back to base. She is the namesake of his sound-barrier breaking Bell X-1 aircraft, "Glamorous Glennis". Warner Bros./ Courtesy: Everett Collection. We will miss this legend and continue to break barriers in his honor. said Maj. Gen. Christopher Azzano, commander of the Air Force Test Center at Edwards. Legendary test pilot and World War II fighter ace Gen. Charles E. Yeager died Monday night, according to a tweet released by his wife Victoria. Yeager married 45-year-old Victoria Scott DAngelo in 2003. [53][e], Yeager was foremost a fighter pilot and held several squadron and wing commands. US Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager, stands beside the plane in which he broke the sound barrier, the Bell X-1, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis in honor of his wife, in California, circa March 1949. An incredible life well lived, Americas greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever. Wells died Wednesday of illness related to COVID-19. [81], During this time, Yeager also served as a technical adviser for three Electronic Arts flight simulator video games. On the day of the flight, Yeager was in such pain that he could not seal the X-1's hatch by himself. Yeager retired from the Air Force in 1975 and moved to a ranch in Cedar Ridge in Northern California where he continued working as a consultant to the Air Force and Northrop Corp. and became well known to younger generations as a television pitchman for automotive parts and heat pumps. By the time Chuck was five, the family were among the 600 inhabitants of nearby Hamlin. An incredible life well lived, Americas greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever, she wrote. [59], Between December 1963 and January 1964, Yeager completed five flights in the NASA M2-F1 lifting body. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done, Bridenstine said. "I loved airplanes as a kid. 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. [121] Subsequent to the commencement of their relationship, a bitter dispute arose between Yeager, his children and D'Angelo. Later on, I realized that this mission had to end in a letdown because the real barrier wasnt in the sky but in our knowledge and experience of supersonic flight.. ", The Spitfires that nearly broke the sound barrier, AOC under investigation for Met Gala dress, Alex Murdaugh jailed for life for double murder, Mother who killed her five children euthanised, Zoom boss Greg Tomb fired without cause, The children left behind in Cuba's exodus, Biden had skin cancer lesion removed - White House. 03:07 He received his pilot wings and appointment as a flight officer in March 1943 while at a base in Arizona, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant after arriving in England for training. [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". Fr @VictoriaYeage11 It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. The X-1A began spinning viciously and spiraling to Earth, dropping 50,000 feet in about a minute. Ive flown 341 types of military planes in every country in the world and logged about 18,000 hours, he said in an interview in the January 2009 issue of Mens Journal. Chuck Yeager (@GenChuckYeager) December 8, 2020 In 1947, Yeager flew the Bell X-1 rocket 700 mph at 43,000 feet, becoming the first person to break the sound barrier in level flight. "Gen. Yeager's pioneering and innovative spirit . It wasnt a matter of not having airplanes that would fly at speeds like this. In 1941, soon after graduating from high school and shortly before the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces, later to become the US Air Force. [54], Now 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, Yeager 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. ", Yeager strikes a pose with Sam Shepard, who played him in the movie version of The Right Stuff. It's your job.". Battling stormy weather as he took the plane aloft, he analyzed its strengths and weaknesses. Gen. Charles "Chuck" Yeager, 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. His wife, Victoria, announced . His signal achievement came on Oct. 14, 1947, when he climbed out of a B-29 bomber as it ascended over the Mojave Desert in California and entered the cockpit of an orange, bullet-shaped, rocket-powered experimental plane attached to the bomb bay. Mr. Wolfe wrote about a nonchalance affected by pilots in the face of an emergency in a voice specifically Appalachian in origin, one that was first heard in military circles but ultimately emanated from the cockpits of commercial airliners. He later regretted that his lack of a college education prevented him from becoming an astronaut. Gen. Charles "Chuck' Yeager, passed away. Norm Healey was visiting from Canada and reading about Yeager's accomplishments. Chuck Yeager, a World War II fighter pilot, the first person to break the sound barrier and one of the subjects of Philip Kaufman 's The Right Stuff has died. About. In 1947 Yeager was the first person to break the sound barrier; and, in hitting Mach 1, he set the US on a path that was to lead to Neil Armstrongs 1969 moon landing. Feb. 13, 2023. It was, Mr. Wolfe said, the drawl of the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff: Chuck Yeager.. Glennis was the namesake of his sound-barrier breaking Bell X-1 aircraft . Yeager was also the chairman of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)'s Young Eagle Program from 1994 to 2004, and was named the program's chairman emeritus. Gen. Charles "Chuck" Yeager, 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. That night, he said, his family ate the goose for dinner. Working with the Piper company he broke several flying records for light aircraft. Chuck Yeager, the most famous test pilot of his generation, who was the first to break the sound barrier and, thanks to Tom Wolfe, came to personify the death-defying aviator who possessed the elusive yet unmistakable right stuff, died on Monday in Los Angeles. In his memoir, General Yeager said he was annoyed when people asked him if he had the right stuff, since he felt it implied a talent he was born with. Contact Us. Yeager went into the history books after his flight in the Bell X-1 experimental rocket plane in 1947. On Oct. 12, 1944, leading three fighter squadrons escorting bombers over Bremen, Germany, he downed five German planes, becoming an ace in a day. The game manuals featured quotes and anecdotes from Yeager and were well received by players. Yeager joined the USAF test pilot school at Muroc (now known as Edwards Air Force Base), and in June 1947 he was enlisted in the X-1 programme, making his first powered flight reaching Mach .85 that August. And he understood that, just because he understood machines so well. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done,' Bridenstine said in a statement. He was 97 . [21] "I raised so much hell that General Eisenhower finally let me go back to my squadron" Yeager said. 15 Squadron "Cobras" at Peshawar Airbase, the Squadron's OC Wing 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. Yeager had unusually sharp vision (a visual acuity rated 20/10), which once enabled him to shoot a deer at 600yd (550m). Sixty-five years later to the minute, on Oct. 14, 2012, Yeager commemorated the feat, flying in the back seat of an F-15 Eagle as it broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet (9,144 meters . [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. It is referred to as a Special Congressional Silver Medal in the President's Daily Diary (also see for a list of ceremony attendees). If youre willing to bleed, Uncle Sam will give you all the planes you want.. 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. On October 19, 2006, the state of West Virginia also honored Yeager with a marker along Corridor G (part of U.S. Highway 119) in his home Lincoln County, and also renamed part of the highway the Yeager Highway. It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET, Victoria Yeager wrote on her husbands verified Twitter account. They had four children (Susan, Don, Mickey, and Sharon). Then he faced another challenge during a dogfight over France. Chuck Yeager, a former U.S. Air Force officer who became the first pilot to break the speed of sound, died Monday. After all the anticipation to achieve this moment, it really was a letdown, General Yeager wrote in his best-selling memoir Yeager (1985, with Leo Janos). The history-making pilot helped "set our nations dreams soaring into the jet age and the space age," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. And he persuaded the authorities to let him fly again and he did which was highly unusual.". The second of four children of Albert Yeager, a staunchly Republican gas driller, and his wife, Susie Mae (nee Sizemore), Chuck was born in Myra, West Virginia, the Mud River. January 15, 2021 11:45 AM. On 14 October 1947, Yeager's plane - nicknamed Glamorous Glennis, in honour of his first wife - was dropped from the bomb bay of a B-29 aircraft above the Mojave Desert in the south-western US. When Yeager left Hamlin, he was already known as a daredevil. Born on February 13th, 1923, General Chuck Yeager with the Bell X-1 team, made world history breaking the sound barrier on Oct. 14th, 1947. General Yeager became a familiar face in commercials and made numerous public appearances. He'd been fighting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) for some time and that is believed to be the cause of his death, although no official statement has been released. 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. In 2016, when General Yeager was asked on Twitter what made him want to become a pilot, the reply was infused with cheeky levity: I was in maintenance, saw pilots had beautiful girls on their arms, didnt have dirty hands, so I applied.. Yeager was not present in the aircraft. The locals in the nearby village of Yoxford, he recalled, resented having 7,000 Yanks descend on them, their pubs and their women, and were rude and nasty.. US test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier, has died aged 97, his wife says. As popularized in The Right Stuff, Yeager broke the sound barrier on Oct. 14, 1947, at Edwards Air Force Base in California. -. It was a feat of considerable courage, as nobody was certain at the time whether an aircraft could survive the shockwaves of a sonic boom. Glennis Dickhouse was pilot Chuck Yeager's wife of 45 years. Away from The Right Stuff, some critics charged that the vastly experienced Yeager had simply ignored advice about the complexities of the new jet. According to sources, James "MF" Yeager passed away this morning, September 2, 2022. General Chuck Yeager, first man to break the sound barrier, passed away on Monday night at 97. Chuck Yeager, a folksy, hard-living daredevil who was the first aviator to break the sound barrier and became a symbol of bravery for generations of test pilots, astronauts and average Americans . rules against Chuck Yeager's daughter in dispute with stepmother", "Chuck Yeager, who made history for breaking the sound barrier, dies at 97", "Chuck Yeager, pilot who broke the sound barrier, dies at 97", Biography in the National Aviation Hall of Fame, General Chuck Yeager, USAF, Biography and Interview, "Chuck Yeager & the Sound Barrier" in Aerospaceweb.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chuck_Yeager&oldid=1142035779, United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War, People from Lincoln County, West Virginia, Recipients of the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States), Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army), Survivors of aviation accidents or incidents, United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II, Pages using cite court with unknown parameters, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Yeager, Chuck, Bob Cardenas, Bob Hoover, Jack Russell and James Young, This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 04:40. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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 9 pm ET. [67][72] The Beechcraft was later destroyed during an air raid by the Indian Air Force at a PAF airbase. He trained as an Army Air Corps mechanic, but by July 1942 he was flight training in California, where he met his wife-to-be, Glennis Dickhouse. Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager died Dec. 7. Yeager flew for what was then his monthly USAF pay of $283. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985. The pair started dating shortly thereafter, and married in August 2003. 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. Gen. Charles "Chuck" Yeager, 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. It's your job. Renowned test pilot Chuck Yeager dies Published Dec. 9, 2020 By 412th Test Wing Public Affairs EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFNS) -- Famed test pilot, retired Brig. [83], 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. [98] On August 25, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced that Yeager would be one of 13 California Hall of Fame inductees in The California Museum's yearlong exhibit. (AP Photo/Douglas C . West Virginia Chuck Yeager is dead at the age of 97. . [97], Yeager was an honorary board member of the humanitarian organization Wings of Hope. The public was only told about the mission in June 1948. [90][g], Yeager, who never attended college and was often modest about his background, 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. The pilots flew by day and caroused by night, piling into the Pancho Barnes bar. [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. He was 97. (Yeager himself had only a high school education, so he was not eligible to become an astronaut like those he trained.) Chuck Yeager's history, legacy still live in Kern County and beyond. In his autobiography, Yeager wrote that he knew the lake bed was unsuitable for landings after recent rains, but Armstrong insisted on flying out anyway. [96], Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, is named in his honor. Yeager was born Feb. 23, 1923, in Myra, a tiny community on the Mud River deep in an Appalachian hollow about 40 miles southwest of Charleston. BRIDGEPORT, W.Va (WDTV) - Legendary pilot and West Virginia native Chuck Yeager died Monday night, his wife said on social media. "Chuck's bravery and accomplishments are a testament to the enduring strength that made him a true American original, and NASA's Aeronautics work owes much to his brilliant contributions to aerospace science. By. Video, 'Trump or bust' - grassroots Republicans are still loyal, "It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. He was 97. Yeager enlisted in the Army Air Corps after graduating from high school in 1941. Chuck Yeager, the steely Right Stuff test pilot who took aviation to the doorstep of space by becoming the first person to break the sound barrier more than 70 years ago, has died at the age of 97. Yeager died Monday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement, calling the death "a tremendous loss to our nation." "Gen. Yeager's pioneering and innovative spirit advanced. You do it because it's duty. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nations highest civilian award, from President Ronald Reagan in 1985. He was also a key supporter of the Marshall University's Society of Yeager Scholars, which was named in his honor. Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager died, Dec. 7, 2020. [68][69] After hostilities broke out in 1971, he decided to stay in West Pakistan and continued overseeing the PAF's operations. Born in 1924, she married Chuck when she was just 21. Yeager's wife, Victoria, paid tribute on Twitter. [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". Oct. 14, 1947, Yeager became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California. An Air Force captain at the time, he zoomed off in the plane, a Bell Aircraft X-1, at an altitude of 23,000 feet, and when he reached about 43,000 feet above the desert, historys first sonic boom reverberated across the floor of the dry lake beds. He said he had gotten up at dawn that day and went hunting, bagging a goose before his flight. When he was asked to repeat the feat for photographers, Yeager replied: You should never strafe the same place twice cause the gunners will be waiting for you.. Yeager was a laconic Appalachian whose education ended with a high-school diploma. who announced Yeager's death on December 7 on his Twitter page. He was, he said in his autobiography Yeager (1985, with Leo Janos), the guy who broke the sound barrier the kid who swam the Mud River with a swiped watermelon, or shot the head off a squirrel before breakfast. And he was also the guy who got patronised by officers who looked down their noses at my ways and accent or pegged him as dumb and down-home. Read about our approach to external linking. In December 1953, General Yeager flew the X-1A plane at nearly two and a half times the speed of sound after barely surviving a spin, setting a world speed record. ", Yeager never considered himself to be courageous or a hero. Why Alex Murdaugh was spared the death penalty, 'Trump or bust' - grassroots Republicans are still loyal. In 2005 President George W Bush promoted him to major-general. It's not just flying the airplane, it's interpreting how the airplane is flying and understanding that. All I know is I worked my tail off learning to learn how to fly, and worked hard at it all the way, he wrote. Yeager never forgot his roots and West Virginia named bridges, schools and Charlestons airport after him.
Scott Russell Obituary,
How Does Accenture View Automation?,
Is Dr Michael Greger Getting The Vaccine,
Articles C