back to article Chuck Yeager, sound barrier pioneer pilot, dies at 97

Famed test pilot Chuck Yeager has died, aged 97. Yeager was pilot of the first crewed vehicle to exceed Mach 1 and break the sound barrier, a feat he accomplished in 1947 behind the stick of a Bell X-1. A test pilot at the time, Yeager landed the role after displaying exceptional skill as a fighter pilot in World War II. …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ?

    To my chagrin, I admit I didn't realise General Yeager was still alive.

    In the sixties Ias a child I read anything I could about aviation, he was part of the mythical Past.

    I was also enamoured of dinosaurs, maybe the notion that all wonders were eons ago cross-fertilised.

    1. Roger Greenwood

      Re: ?

      There is a film being made (involving the family) of some of his earlier exploits including being shot down in WWII, evading capture etc. I am sure you could find the crowdfunder and chip a few quid in, if you felt so inclined.

      1. G Mac
        Pint

        Re: ?

        To be honest, do read his autobiography (I read the first). That was about as much fun as you can have reading a book. The guy was 'balls to the wall'.

        What is missing from most discussion on his breaking the sound barrier in the X-1 was that he did it (if memory serves) with fractured ribs. From very past memory:

        He had been riding a horse with his wife the NIGHT before the flight and had fallen off (it was dark...) and fractured some ribs. He didn't report this...

        Problem was he could not close the door of the X-1 with his fractured ribs as it required quite a bit of torque. Solution: with the help of one of his flight buddies, he sawed the handle off a broom and used that as lever to close the door. Problem solved, sound barrier broken.

    2. JCitizen
      Unhappy

      Re: ?

      May he ride to that Happy Bottom Riding Club in heaven and have a drink to Pancho Barnes and all his buddies who lost there lives before he did! :'(

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: ?

        Yeager has a cameo in the film of The Right Stuff. He was one of their technical advisors. He's in the bar, standing behind Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer as they walk in.

        I'm not sure the what his real veiws on the early astronauts were - i.e. if the film and the book exaggerated them a bit in order to create conflict. But even in the film, which plays this up more than the book, there's a comment from Yeager's character - after someone else has commented on how the astronauts are doing the same jobs as a monkey - that "it takes a special kind of man to fly a suicide mission on live TV." Or that the difference between the monkey and the man is the man knows the risks he's taking.

        It's still a great film though. A nice way to waste a Saturday would be to watch The Right Stuff, then First Man and finish with Apollo 13.

  2. UCAP Silver badge

    if Chuck had been born maybe 20 years later, it is almost certain that instead of breaking the sound barrier he would have been strapping himself in at the top of a rocket bound for orbit. He definitely has The Right Stuff in spades! RIP to an exceptionally brave yet modest man.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Chuck didn't like the idea of being fired up into orbit as a propaganda payload, not being the pilot in command. He observed that chimpanzees did it first.

      1. OssianScotland

        "spam in a can"

        The post is required, and must contain letters.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: "spam in a can"

          Except that they weren't spam in a can. Almost all the early astronauts had to take manual control at some point, because the automatic systems on the capsules failed in various ways. So even Mercury ended up with lots of manual control. One of the things they tested on the final flight with Gordo Coooper was not to use fuel to keep the capsule stable, and that's one of the reasons why he was able to orbit for so long. Another reason apparently being that he was the only non-smoker and used way less air than the other astronauts.

          Though I think it's one of the flaws of an otherwise excellent book that Wolfe got most of his information from a few sources, so his version of history is rather more favourable to some participants than to others.

          So after Mercury, Gemini was all about the controls and how they could build the systems and capabilities to allow pilots to fly the craft so that they could do orbital rendezvous - to make the Moon landing feasible.

          So even if that really was Yeager's view, rather than a distortion of what he actually thought - it's wrong.

  3. Dr_N

    Old, bold pilots.

    They do exist!

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Old, bold pilots.

      Him and Eric Brown for example. Although I get the impresson Brown was a bit less of a "stick and rudder man" and a bit more of a prototype for the modern scientific school of test piloting. On t'other hand, it's hard to be sure how much Yeager was playing up to the image of the seat-of-the-pants flyer and risk-taker, while also doing all the quiet work in the background to control the risks as much as possible.

      But one of the things that's easy to forget is the huge risk of flying back then. You had all the prop pilots to retrain into jets - which handle very differently. And the technology was much less reliable too.

      I was watching a Beeb documentary on the RAF in the 50s, and it was saying that they killed 1 to 2 pilots out of every training group (30 - 50 pilots) - before they'd completed the course. The RAF had a lot of pilots back then, and it's a casualty rate that would be hard to accept in wartime! Let alone peacetime basic training.

      1. Robert 22

        Re: Old, bold pilots.

        'I was watching a Beeb documentary on the RAF in the 50s, and it was saying that they killed 1 to 2 pilots out of every training group (30 - 50 pilots) - before they'd completed the course."

        You can imagine how dangerous it was flying prototype aircraft at a time when there was terrific pressure to get planes into service without delay. The early versions of the F-100, the first truly supersonic fighter, had some particularly treacherous flying characteristics. Here is one reference: https://supersabresociety.com/legacy_stories/f-100s-first-naca-flight-with-scott-crossfield/

  4. Potemkine! Silver badge

    To boldly go where no man has gone before

    RIP Mr. Yeager.

    Chuck Yeager's Air Combat was one of my favourite games during the 90s

    1. Chz

      Re: To boldly go where no man has gone before

      My only memory of that is Chuck's smug voice telling me "Good thing this is just a simulator" as I crashed against unbeatable odds. I hated him for that! :)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: To boldly go where no man has gone before

      Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer was the one for me. My dad was a major flight simulator nut and he bought this for the C64 - to his irritation, I ended up playing it more than he did. The only other flight-related game I ever got into was Microprose's 'Solo Flight'.

      Admittedly, CYAFT wasn't going to win any prizes graphically, but the fact that it placed more emphasis on how the different planes handled over looking pretty won me over. Naturally, the man himself had considerable technical input. As an aside, it was also back when EA still made decent games instead of the production line, microtransaction-laden bullshit they peddle today.

      However, it seems that like quite a few others here, I was labouring under the misapprehension that Gen. Yeager had died quite a few years ago.

      That, kids, is what a real hero looked like.

    3. vonBureck
      Unhappy

      Re: To boldly go where no man has gone before

      Chuck Yeager's Air Combat was the first game I ever bought, now there's nostalgia for you... Let us say goodbye to the flying legend in the same words I heard from him so many times:

      You bought the farm.

    4. Paradroid

      Re: To boldly go where no man has gone before

      Chuck Yeager's Air Combat was one of my favourites too, played it for hours on end. On a 286 I seem to remember.

      Chuck is a legend, sad to see him go, but at least he lived a long, full life and leaves behind a great legacy.

    5. Zolko Silver badge

      Re: To boldly go where no man has gone before

      You can still play Chuck Yeager's Air Combat in an MS-DOS emulator. Of course, you also need the book (in PDF) as it asks questions about aircraft as an anti-copy method.

      "What is the maximum speed in mph of the Me-110B?"

      349 of course. But the sound is terrible

      1. Robert 22

        Re: To boldly go where no man has gone before

        Close - it was the Me 110C (actually Bf 110C is the strictly correct designation) that speed was attributed to.

  5. chuckufarley Silver badge
    Unhappy

    According to his autobigraphy...

    ...Chuck Yeager's great success as pilot was due in large part to his exceptional eye sight. As a squadron leader in WWII Yeager would be heading south across the Channel and spot the German aircraft, ID their makes and models, and have targets assigned to his squadron members a full minute before anyone else could see them. This is while flying at 300+ MPH toward the enemy and them moving at a similar speed toward him.

    They are called The Greatest Generation for many reasons.

    1. RockBurner

      Re: According to his autobigraphy...

      Was going to say the same.

      IIRC from reading one of his biographies many years ago he didn't rate his own flying skills that highly, but his eyesight allowed him to put himself into the attacking position earlier and thus shoot down more aircraft. (I'd imagine Baron Manfred von Richthofen in WW1, and other aces had similar exceptional eyesight).

      1. Tom 7

        Re: According to his autobigraphy...

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Beurling could spot a gnats chuff at a great distance too. but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz-Wolfgang_Schnaufer, who for some reason we dont hear much about, could shoot out a gnats chuff in the dark.

  6. imanidiot Silver badge

    The right stuff, in some circumstances

    Yeager was an exceptional pilot when it comes to aerodynamic flight. No question about it. He did many amazing things.

    "Both works depicted Yeager's belief that astronauts did little real flying and ought not to be compared to test pilots who had to exercise exceptional skill day in, day out."

    But this right here is exactly why Yeager was passed over for the space/astronaut programs. He didn't "get" non-aerodynamic flight or orbital mechanics so in his mind, astronauts did no flying and were "inferior" to "real" test pilots (not withstanding that many early astronauts were outstanding pilots in their own right, all had completed test pilot school and contributed immensely to the understanding of spaceflight, orbital mechanics and maneuvering nor that many flights were saved only by the astronaut on board. Were they pilots? Not in the traditional sense of the word, but they certainly weren't monkeys along for the ride as Yeager painted them)

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. SkippyBing

      Re: The right stuff, in some circumstances

      Indeed, as mentioned at the link below about one of his more famous crashes.

      http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/stories/stories_13.html

      Sad that he's gone but always thought of him as a poor man's Winkle Brown.

      1. Snapper

        Re: The right stuff, in some circumstances

        Eric Brown was slated to fly the Miles M.52 in 1946, nearly a year before Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.

        The difference in the planes was astounding. The Miles would take off from a runway, fly supersonic for about 20 minutes and land back on a runway.

        The Bell X-1 had to be carried aloft underneath a B-29, gave only a couple of minutes supersonic and had to touch down on skids to land.

        The Miles would have been a far safer aircraft, but was cancelled mainly due to cost reasons but 'Officially' because of the danger to the pilot.

        1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

          Re: The right stuff, in some circumstances

          IIRC weren't the plans for the M.52 given to Bell during the war as part of a rather one-sided "exchange", accounting for the similarities in the designs?

    3. disgruntled yank

      Re: The right stuff, in some circumstances

      I believe he would not have been eligible for the Mercury program, as not having a college degree. But yes, was a bit limited there.

  7. cookieMonster Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    A fighter pilot AND test pilot

    Who fought in a war, flew bleeding edge aircraft and still lived to 97.

    That’s what you call a great run.

    1. PerlyKing
      Go

      Re: A fighter pilot AND test pilot

      Who fought in a war three wars, flew bleeding edge aircraft and still lived to 97.

      That’s what you call a great run.

      FTFY.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A fighter pilot AND test pilot

        I was going to post "two wars" (WW2 and 'Nam) based on what's written in That Wiki.

        Presumably the 'third' war would have been Korea.

  8. MJI Silver badge

    At least he hit a good age

    RIP

  9. hammarbtyp

    Old and bold

    "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots*"

    *Except Chuck Yeager

    Amazing man, amazing career. To live through through the golden age of aircraft test and live to get your angel wings at 97, is a testament to what a great pilot he was.

    1. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

      Re: Old and bold

      and Eric 'Winkle' Brown

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Old and bold

        Hawker's test pilot in the 50s was Neville Duke. He didn't have a video game, but a British company sold a card game called Test Pilot with his endorsement from 1955. He passed away aged 85 in 2007.

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Old and bold

      And Bob Hoover, wingman and friend of Chuck and most amazing flyer.

    3. Korev Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Old and bold

      I'd add Eric Brown, but they were both amazing.

      Pint for them both -->

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Old and bold

        Father Ted beat me to it, the pint still stands

    4. chapter32

      Re: Old and bold

      and John Farley who played a key role in the development of the Harrier.

      1. Colin Wilson 2

        Re: Old and bold

        +1 for John Farley. Here he is doing his thing in Switzerland. An old grainy video, but that take-off towards the mountains is extraordinary.

  10. KBeee

    The Right Stuff

    There was a recent series on Disney+ called The Right Stuff. It managed to write out Chuck Yeager, thus missing one of the main points of Tom Wolfes book, and subsequent 1983 film.

    I watched the first episode, but could see it was based more on Astronauts Wives than The Right Stuff, so didn't watch any more.

    RIP General Chuck Yeager

    1. John Sager

      Re: The Right Stuff

      One word. Disney. Says it all ☹️

      1. andy gibson

        Re: The Right Stuff

        The Apple TV alternate history one "For All Mankind" was better.

  11. S4qFBxkFFg

    I thought this was interesting: Chuck Yeager's 100,000 Foot Zoom Rocket Plane Crash

    Apparently, the rocket augmented F104 crash scene in "The Right Stuff" departed some distance from the truth, the linked video tries to give a better idea of what happened.

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      Yeagers account of that particular crash in no way matches what happened according to the lead test pilot on the NF-104 AeroSpace Trainer program. His account on the program and the incident is very interesting reading. http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/index.html

      I can't help but think there's some sour grapes that might be coloring the account somewhat, but the way it's written certainly matches much better with how one would expect such an aircraft to behave in that situation. The dramatisation in "The Right Stuff" was precisely that, pure drama based in no way on reality. Yeager himself seemed unwilling to admit he may have screwed up.

      1. WhereAmI?

        Kalimera's site bears reading in its entirety. It appears that (contrary to popular belief) Yeager was NOT the first pilot to break the sound barrier - Kalimera was. Politics played a huge part in hushing up what Kalimera did on the night before the X-1 flight. A careful read of many pages devoted to the actual fact of the X-1 flight now state that Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier 'in level flight'. Additionally, although Kalimera did it in a dive (I think it was in an F-100 but it's on the site somewhere), Kalimare did it in an air-breathing aircraft which was a HUGE difference over the rocket-powered X-1.

        1. PerlyKing

          Citation needed

          I'm afraid I'll need more than a fan website to convince me that some unknown was the first to do X.

          There are quite a few claims to have broken the "sound barrier" in diving aircraft prior to Chuck Yeager's flight, but none of the aircraft at the time had the power and/or aerodynamics to do it in level flight, which is why "in level flight" is a big deal.

          A few of the X-planes (the X is for eXperimental) have been rocket powered, as they were designed for specific purposes which only required high speed for a short length of time.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Citation needed

            Yep, the "sound barrier" was a thing at least during WW2. Pilots were aware of the dangers of very fast steep powered dives and "locking up" of control surfaces resulting in very sudden litho-braking.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Citation needed

              Ha, litho-braking!

              Otherwise known as collision with cumulo-granite.

          2. WhereAmI?

            Re: Citation needed

            I absolutely agree with your comment about 'quite a few claims'. Too many with no proof and definately no way that it actually happened. As a new poster, I would respectfully point out that http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/index.html is not a fan website.

            1. PerlyKing

              Re: Citation needed

              Having read the section on the NF104 I heartily agree that it is not a fan website, but a fascinating resource on that aircraft.

              The rest of the web site seems pretty random, and I can find no mention of anyone called Kalimera, or anyone other than Chuck Yeager being the first to break the sound barrier. Google has no relevant hits for "kalimera sound barrier" and nor does Bing. Can you provide a direct link to the page?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    God bless him!

    Chuck Yeager became a WW2 ace and broke the sound barrier by the time he was 25 years old! He commanded the U.S. Air Force school that trained astronauts coming from the Air Force in the early 1960s, but could not become one himself because he did not have a college degree. He also was a member of the NASA commission that investigated the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Besides World War II, he actually flew a lot of bomber missions in Vietnam in the first couple years of the war there. Despite his lack of a college education, he rose to the rank of Brigadier General before retiring from the USAF.

    RIP to a legendary pilot and American.

  13. fpx
    Alert

    I am also reminded of Chuck Yeager's relationship to The Fastest Man on Earth, John Paul Stapp, and their involvement with Edward A. Murphy, the namesake for Murphy's Law.

    See https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i5/murphy/murphy0.php

  14. macjules
    Unhappy

    Dear God

    We are sending you Chuck Yeager. Please don't let him play with the wings: he might test them to destruction.

  15. OssianScotland

    Nothing else need be said...

    "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

    And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

    Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

    of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

    You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

    High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

    I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

    My eager craft through footless halls of air....

    Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

    I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

    Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

    And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

    The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

    – Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

  16. RosslynDad
    Happy

    Don't Forget his Acting Career

    Obviously it is time to re-watch The Right Stuff. I particularly like the work of the bar-tender in Panchos's bar...

  17. Martin Gregorie

    I'm just pleased I got to see and hear Chuck Yeager

    I was at the opening lecture of the 1999/2000 NASM Winter Lecture series which, like all of the series' opening talks, was given by Chuck Yeager. He spoke well and gave a very interesting talk as well as going into other exploits during the Q&A session that followed. The most memorable was about the incident when he snap-rolled a P-51D at a display during a low pass and had the engine quit: yes he had a plan thought out for that! He walked away and I believe the P-51D lived to fly again too.

    I'd been tipped off beforehand about book signings, so fronted up afterwards with a copy of 'The Quest For Mach One' and had him sign the colour photo of himself standing in front of the X-1.

    I'm very pleased to have been there the day.

  18. Gene Cash Silver badge

    I sort of met him once

    There was the "Gathering of Mustangs" at Kissimmee, FL in 1999. Something like over 65 or 70 of them. He was standing next to his P-51 bullshitting with Frank Borman, Neil Armstrong, and Gene Cernan. I kept on walking.

    1. Claptrap314 Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: I sort of met him once

      That's class. Just because someone is famous or a hero doesn't mean that they should be expected to be available to interact with any person who see them.

      Have one -->

    2. macjules

      Re: I sort of met him once

      I saw him at Harrods around Christmas in 1981. He was chatting with Douglas Bader and Laddie Lucas at their book launch. Someone asked him if he had any advice for anyone who wanted to take up flying and he joked, "Make sure your instructor has legs first" to lots of laughter from the other 2.

  19. Mark 85

    RIP Chuck Yeager

    As a kid living in Dayton, Ohio, he went around to the local schools over several years time. He inspired many of us to look beyond ourselves. Many of went into tech or science. I remember the Q&A session afterwards as he didn't take the piss on those who asked dumb questions nor over explain things to those who asked tech type question. A true gentleman.

    Footnote.. at the time Wright-Patterson AFB was home to lot of developmental and space experiments so he as well as the future astronauts and others were common in town. Joseph Kittenger lived on the next block over from my parents. Back then, these guys had to have had guts of steel.

  20. Celeste Reinard

    Broomstick

    Quite the guy, using a sawed-off broomstick to close the cockpit... As it happens, I must have read The Right Stuff 5 or 6 times - and seen the movie at least trice - it even passed my hands yesterday.

  21. DanceMan

    from the PBS documentary “Chasing The Moon”:

    ”Chasing the Moon’s discussions of astronaut selection and early PR campaigns for Apollo highlight the overlooked story of Ed Dwight, a fighter pilot who nearly became the first African American astronaut. Dwight had an outstanding military record, and the Kennedy administration was keen for NASA to have an African American astronaut. After passing his medical exam, Dwight was sent to Chuck Yeager’s flight school, the testing ground for potential astronauts. According to Dwight and a later investigation from the White House, Yeager pulled all the instructors into a room and ordered them not to speak to Dwight, not to interact or provide advice to him, and not to socialize with him outside of the base. Yeager’s reason was that he didn’t want ‘a colored guy’ to be an astronaut.”

    1. onemark03

      Yeager didn’t want ‘a colored guy’ to be an astronaut.

      Oh, dear.

      Not another hero with feet of clay.

      And there's me thinking Yeager was one OK American. He has now plummeted in my estimation.

      1. jim oberg

        Unplummet, please

        See my comment on why that story is extremely dubious.

    2. jim oberg

      dubious dwight story

      This story is very dubious, here are some primary sources:

      Edward J. Dwight [March 2, 2020] == “I never accused Chuck Yeager of causing my failure to fly in space. It was the political environment of the day that transcended anything that Chuck Yeager had an impact on.”

      https://www.facebook.com/NPR/posts/10159027154926756

      Smithsonian "Black in Space" documentary, Feb 23, 2020, curator Cathleen Lewis: “We don’t know if Chuck Yeager derailed Dwight’s career. And historians searched for evidence, and haven’t found it.”

      https://youtu.be/I7jJ8jEh608

      at time 10:58

      . Here's a Yeager profile by a black pilot who flew with him:

      http://victoriayeager.com/emmett-hatch/

  22. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    A salute from my side.

    Well done, Sir, for being an inspiration for most of us, to keep pushing forwards and upwards, and not to rest.

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