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Chuck Yeager

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Major General Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager (born on February 13, 1923, in Lincoln County, West Virginia) was a general officer in the United States Air Force and a noted test pilot.

His career began in World War II as a U.S. Army Air Force P-51 fighter pilot, and after the war, he remained in the Air Force and became a test pilot of many kinds of aircraft and rocket planes. He is considered a living legend of aviation, for he became the first pilot to travel faster than sound Mach 1 in level and ascent. Though Scott Crossfield was the first man to fly faster than Mach 2, Yeager shortly thereafter exceeded Mach 2.4.<ref name="yeagerbio_252">Yeager, Chuck and Janos, Leo. Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 226 (paperback). New York: Bantam Books, 1986. ISBN 0-553-25674-2.</ref> He later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany and in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, then was promoted to Brigadier General. Yeager's flying career spans more than sixty years and has taken him to every corner of the globe, even into the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Yeager was born to farming parents Susie Mae and Albert Hal Yeager in Myra, West Virginia and graduated from high school in Hamlin, West Virginia. Yeager had two brothers, Roy and Hal, Jr., and two sisters, Doris Ann (accidentally killed by Roy with a shotgun while still an infant)<ref name="yeagerbio_6">Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 6 (paperback).</ref> and Pansy Lee. His first association with the military was as a participant in the Citizens Military Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana, during both 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.

Chuck Yeager is not related to Jeana Yeager, one of the two pilots of the globe-circling Voyager aircraft. The name "Yeager" is an Anglicized form of the German and Dutch name, Jäger, and so is common among immigrants of those communities.

[edit] Air Force career

[edit] World War II

Yeager enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) on September 12, 1941, and became an aircraft mechanic at Victorville Army Air Field, California. He was selected for flight training as a flying sergeant in July 1942, and quickly exhibited an outstanding natural talent as a pilot, receiving his wings and a promotion to Flight Officer at Luke Field, Arizona, on March 10, 1943. Assigned to the 357th Fighter Group at Tonopah, Nevada, he initially trained as a fighter pilot flying P-39 Airacobras and went overseas with the group on November 23, 1943.

Stationed in the United Kingdom at RAF Leiston, Yeager flew P-51 Mustangs in combat (he named his aircraft Glamorous Glen after his girlfriend, Glennis Faye Dickhouse, who became his wife in February 1945) with the 363rd Fighter Squadron. He had gained one victory before he was shot down over France on his eighth mission, on March 5, 1944. (See his Escape and Evasion report. <ref name=EscapeEvasion> Escape and Evasion Case File for Flight Officer Charles (Chuck) E. Yeager</ref>) He escaped to Spain on March 30 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 guerrilla group in duties that did not involve direct combat, though he did help to construct bombs for the group, a skill which he had learned from his father.<ref name="yeagerbio_45">Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 45 (paperback).</ref> He was awarded the Bronze Star for helping another airman (who was missing part of his leg) across the Pyrenees.

Despite a regulation that "evaders" (escaped pilots) could not fly over enemy territory again to avoid compromising Resistance allies, Yeager was reinstated to flying combat. Yeager had joined a bomber pilot evader, Capt. Fred Glover, in speaking directly to the Allied Supreme Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, on June 12, 1944. With Glover pleading their case, arguing that because the Allies had invaded France, the Maquis resistance movement was by then openly fighting the Nazis alongside, so there was little or nothing they could reveal if shot down again to expose those who had helped them evade capture. Eisenhower, after gaining permission from the War Department to decide the requests, concurred with Yeager and Glover. Yeager later credited his postwar success in the Air Force to this decision, saying that his test pilot career followed naturally from being a decorated combat ace with a good kill record, along with being an airplane maintenance man prior to attending pilot school. In part because of his maintenance background, Yeager frequently served in his flying units as a "maintenance officer", the liaison between pilots and mechanics.

Yeager possessed outstanding eyesight (rated as 20/10, once enabling him to shoot a deer at 600 yards<ref name="yeagerbio_297">Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 297 (paperback).</ref>), flying skills, and combat leadership; he distinguished himself by becoming the first pilot in his group to make "ace in a day": he shot down five enemy aircraft in one mission, finishing the war with 11.5 official victories, including one of the first air-to-air victories over a jet fighter (a German Me-262). Two of his "ace in a day" kills were scored without firing a single shot; he flew into firing position against an Me-109 and the pilot of the aircraft panicked, breaking to starboard and colliding with his wingman; Yeager later reported both pilots bailed out. An additional victory which was not officially counted for him came during the period before his combat status was reinstated: during a training flight in his P-51 over the North Sea, he happened on a German Ju-88 attacking a downed B-17 Flying Fortress crew. Yeager's quick thinking and reflexes saved the B-17 crew, but because he was not yet cleared for flying combat again, his gun camera film and credit for the kill were given to his wingman, Eddie Simpson (Yeager later mistakenly recalled that the credit had given Simpson his fifth kill).

Yeager, after being turned down three times by a promotion board because of a court-martial on his enlisted record, was commissioned a second lieutenant while at Leiston and was promoted to captain before the end of his tour. He flew his sixty-first and final mission on January 15, 1945, and returned to the United States in early February. 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 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.<ref name="yeagerbio_60">Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 60 (paperback).</ref>

[edit] Post-War

Yeager with Bell X-1, which - as with all of the aircraft assigned to him - he named Glamorous Glennis after his wife.

Yeager remained in the Air Force after the war, becoming a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) and eventually being selected to fly the rocket-powered Bell X-1 in a NACA program to research high-speed flight. Such was the difficulty in this task that the answer to many of the inherent challenges were along the lines of "Yeager better have paid-up insurance."<ref name="yeagerbio_157">Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 157 (paperback).</ref> Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet (13,700 m). Two nights before the scheduled date for the flight, he broke two ribs while riding a horse. He was so afraid of being removed from the mission that he went to a veterinarian in a nearby town for treatment and told only his friend and fellow project pilot Jack Ridley about it.

On the day of the flight, Yeager was in such pain that he could not seal the airplane's hatch by himself. Ridley rigged up a device (really just the end of a broom handle, used as an extra lever) to allow Yeager to seal the hatch of the airplane. Yeager's flight recorded Mach 1.06. However, Yeager was always quick to point out that the public paid attention to whole numbers and that the next milestone would be exceeding Mach 2.Yeager's X-1 is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. Yeager was awarded the MacKay and Collier Trophies in 1948 for his mach-transcending flight, and the Harmon International Trophy in 1954.

Some aviation historians contend that American pilot George Welch broke the sound barrier while diving an XP-86 Sabre two weeks before Yeager, and again just 30 minutes before. In a period documentary, the USAF said that Yeager and the X-1 were the first to break the sound barrier "in level flight" (the X-1 was actually climbing when it broke the sound barrier, which is more difficult), which may imply acknowledgement that Welch had broken the sound barrier in a dive before Yeager broke it in the X-1. The F-86 was not, however, capable of flying supersonically without the assistance of gravity and was not, and is not, considered to be a supersonic aircraft because of that fact.<Ref> George Welch - Breaking the sound barrier. Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2006-11-23. “The Air Force still denies that Welch broke the sound barrier first. Welch's flights were unofficial and not tracked by NACA measuring equipment, making verification impossible (pitot tubes of the day suffered from compressibility effects near the speed of sound).”</Ref><Ref> First Supersonic Jet. Aerospaceweb.org. Retrieved on 2006-11-23. “The capabilities of the Sabre were finally released in June 1948 when the Air Force and North American announced that the XP-86, piloted by George Welch, had broken the sound barrier in a dive. However, the date of Welch's achievement was given as 26 April 1948 with no mention made of his earlier flights.”</Ref><Ref> CANADA AVIATION MUSEUM AIRCRAFT CANADAIR F-86 SABRE MK.6. Retrieved on 2006-11-23. “The maximum speed listed at 606 mph (975 km/h) is in level flight, however, the SABRE could exceed the speed of sound (760 mph [1,224 km/h] at sea level and 660 mph [1,061 km/h] at 36,000 ft). This was accomplished by flying to an altitude of approximately 45,000 ft (13,720 m) and with full power applied accelerating to the maximum level flight speed. The aircraft would then be rolled to inverted flight and pulled down until it was pointing straight down at the ground at full power and allowed to accelerate until it was supersonic (Mach 1). Minor buffeting would occur and supersonic flight would be momentarily achieved at approximately 35,000 ft (10,670 m).”</Ref>

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. Postwar testing, however, determined that the Me-262 would go out of control and break apart well short of Mach 1.<Ref> Hans Guido Mutke - The claims. Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2006-11-23. “In a series of carefully controlled flight tests conducted in World War II by Messerschmitt, it was established that the Me 262 was out of control in a dive at Mach 0.86, and that higher Mach numbers would lead to a nose-down trim that could not be counter-acted by the pilot. The resulting steepening of the dive would lead to even higher speeds and self-destruction of the airframe due to excessive negative G loads. Postwar testing by the British government confirmed Messerschmidt's results.”</Ref>

He later went on to break many other speed and altitude records. He also was one of the first American pilots to fly a MiG-15 'Fagot' after its pilot defected to South Korea with it. 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 plane for the female civilian pilot Jackie Cochran, a close friend, as she became the first woman to fly faster than sound. However, on November 20, 1953, the NACA's 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 flight series that they dubbed "Operation NACA Weep." Not only did they beat Crossfield, 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." The Ridley/Yeager USAF team achieved Mach 2.44 on December 12, 1953.<ref name="yeagerbio_252" />

Yeager was foremost a fighter pilot and held several squadron and wing commands. From May 1955 to July 1957 he commanded the F-86H Sabre-equipped 417th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (50th Fighter-Bomber Wing) at Hahn AB, Germany, and Toul-Rosieres Air Base, France; and from 1957 to 1960 the F-100D-equipped 1st Fighter Day Squadron (later, while still under Yeager's command, re-designated the 306th Tactical Fighter Squadron) at George Air Force Base, California, and Morón Air Base, Spain.

In 1962, after completion of a year's studies at the Air War College, he was 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. It was a flying accident during a test flight in one of the school's NF-104s that put an end to his record attempts. Between December 1963 and January 1964,<ref name=Crash> The Crash of Chuck Yeager's NF-104A, December 10 1963</ref> Yeager completed five flights in the NASA M2-F1 lifting body.

In 1966 he took command of the 405th Tactical Fighter Wing at Clark Air Base, the Philippines, whose squadrons were deployed on rotational temporary duty (TDY) in South Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. There he accrued another 414 hours of combat time in 127 missions, mostly in a Martin B-57 light bomber. In February 1968, he was assigned command of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, and led the F-4 Phantom wing in South Korea during the Pueblo crisis.

On June 22, 1969, he was promoted to Brigadier General, and was assigned in July as the vice-commander of the Seventeenth Air Force. In 1971, Yeager was assigned to Pakistan to advise the Pakistan Air Force at the behest of then-Ambassador Joe Farland.<ref name="yeagerbio_391">Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 391 (paperback).</ref>

[edit] Merits

General Yeager's awards and decorations include:

[edit] Post-retirement history

On March 1, 1975, following assignments in Germany and Pakistan, he retired from the Air Force at Norton Air Force Base, but still occasionally flew for the USAF and NASA as a consulting test pilot at Edwards AFB. He also worked as a pitchman for AC-Delco. For his consultant work to the Test Pilot School Commander at Edwards Air Force Base, Yeager is paid one dollar annually, along with all the flying time he wants. The $1 allows him to be covered by workers compensation.

For several years, Yeager was the public face of AC Delco, the automotive parts division of General Motors. Because of this, AC Delco experienced a sales surge.<ref name="yeagerbio_418">Yeager: An Autobiography. Page 418 (paperback).</ref>

Through the years, Yeager delivered a number of aviation and test pilot related speeches to a variety of groups ranging from test pilots, Air Force Association banquets, Civil Air Patrol, Experimental Aircraft Association, and even the Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters (CPCU) National Meeting entitled "Breaking Barriers" in Honolulu in October 1995. Yeager easily adapted his talk to a given audience on the importance of stabilators and their role in giving America air combat supremacy. In 1990, Yeager was included with the first class of inductees into the Aerospace Walk of Honor.

In the late 80s and early 90s, Yeager set a number of light, general aircraft performance records for speed, range, and endurance. Most notable were flights conducted on behalf of Piper Aircraft. On one such flight, Yeager did an emergency landing as a result of fuel exhaustion.

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, with Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine as co-pilot. The chase plane for the flight was an F-16 Fighting Falcon piloted by Bob Hoover, a famous air-show pilot, and his wingman for the first supersonic flight. Had Yeager gone to the flight surgeon with his broken ribs before the X-1 flight, he would have been grounded and Hoover would have flown the supersonic flight test, with Bud Anderson flying chase. This was Yeager's last official flight with the Air Force. At the end of his speech to the crowd he concluded, "All that I am...I owe to the Air Force." In 2004, Congress voted to authorize the President to promote Brig. Gen Yeager to the rank of Major General on the retired list. In 2005, President Bush granted the promotion of both Yeager and (posthumously) air-power pioneer Billy Mitchell to Major General. Few Presidents have authorized retirement promotions: Mitchell was first posthumously reinstated as a brigadier general by President Eisenhower, and Academy Award winning actor/Air Force Reservist Jimmy Stewart was promoted in retirement from Brigadier General to Major General by President Ronald Reagan.

Charles Yeager
Charles Yeager

Yeager, who never attended college and was often modest about his background, is considered by some to be one of the greatest pilots of all time. Despite his lack of higher education, he has been honored in his home state. Marshall University has named its highest academic scholarship, the Society of Yeager Scholars, in his honor. Additionally, Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, is named after him. The Interstate 77 bridge over the Kanawha River in Charleston is named for Yeager. He was the chairman of Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagle Program.

The state of West Virginia honored Yeager with a marker along Corridor G (part of U.S. 119) in his home Lincoln County on October 19 2006, as well as renamed part of the highway the Yeager Highway.<ref name=YeagerComesHome> Yeager Comes Home, WOWK-TV, August 19 2006</ref>

He is now fully retired from military test flight, after having maintained that status for three decades after his official retirement from the Air Force. Yeager served on the presidential commission that investigated the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-51-L. The Sacramento ABC affiliate sent a crew to Yeager's home, a few miles northeast of the city, following the Challenger disaster that was aired on Nightline. Yeager provided a voice of calm, confidence, and understanding during the interview. Most notable was his quote: "They (NASA) have all the telemetry data available to understand what happened, and it will be just a matter of time to analyze it". Yeager did admit that there is a risk in any aeronautical flight test of which the Space Shuttle fits, that crews accept that risk, and these same crews understand the consequences of that risk better than anyone else. But they believe in what they are doing and would not do any other type of work.

In August 2003, nearly 13 years after Glennis Yeager's death, he married actress Victoria Scott D'Angelo, 36 years his junior.<ref name=TheAge040831> The Right Stuff at war, The Age, August 31 2004</ref> Three of his children are currently suing for control of his holdings, claiming that D'Angelo married Yeager for his fortune. Yeager contends they simply want more money. <ref name=Nyt060607> Record-Setting Pilot Chuck Yeager Sues His Children, New York Times, June 7 2006</ref>

On April 22, 2006, the Associated Press reported that daughter Susan Yeager has been ordered to pay her father nearly $1 million for violating her duties as his trustee. According to the report, a Nevada County Superior Court referee had ruled that Susan Yeager improperly profited when she had her father's trust buy her out of property that the two co-owned in Northern California near Nevada City. The decision signed by a judge in late March 2006 found Susan Yeager, currently living in Hawaii, could keep a family condominium Yeager had deeded first to her, and then to his new wife. But Susan Yeager was ordered to reimburse the retired general's trust more than $900,000 in profits and back taxes incurred in the land sale, as well as an estimated $38,000 in court costs.[citation needed]

Yeager now resides in the Penn Valley area of Grass Valley, California.

[edit] The Right Stuff

Yeager was a primary subject of Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff, and of the movie made from it, in which he is played by Sam Shepard. He has a short cameo in a scene as bartender who—as an in-joke because NASA didn't recruit him as an astronaut because he lacked a college education— wants to serve the NASA recruiters some whiskey and is puzzled when they only want a Coke. He was the prototype flier with the "right stuff", although Yeager denied any such attribute, saying it was just a combination of "luck" and "knowing the airplane" (in his autobiography, Yeager concedes that he does believe in the concept of "the right stuff"). Romantic as his character appears to be, his portrayal in the movie is somewhat skewed; Yeager was actually partially responsible for the design of the X-1. In addition, he did not take the modified F-104 Starfighter without authorization, as seen in the motion picture; he simply did not have authorization to attempt to break the Russian record. He did, however, receive 3rd-degree burns on his head and hands from the rocket nozzle of the ejection seat. Yeager, on a referral, helped Wolfe on technical aspects of aviation for the book, The Right Stuff.

[edit] Quotes

  • "It didn't make any difference to me whether I thought the airplane would go faster than sound. I was assigned as a test pilot on it, and it was my duty to fly it."
  • "Everybody that I've ever seen that enjoyed their job was very good at it."
  • "The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down."

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Video games

Chuck Yeager acted as a technical consultant for and appeared in two flight simulator video games produced by Electronic Arts.

[edit] References

<references/>

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

ca:Chuck Yeager da:Charles Elwood Yeager de:Chuck Yeager fr:Charles Elwood Yeager it:Charles Elwood Yeager nl:Charles Elwood Yeager ja:チャック・イェーガー pl:Chuck Yeager pt:Charles Elwood Yeager ro:Chuck Yeager fi:Charles Yeager sv:Chuck Yeager tr:Chuck Yeager zh:查克·葉格

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