Col. “Speed” Flies West!
Chuck Yeager – personification of the ‘right stuff’ – dies at 97
Posted by EarthSky in HUMAN WORLD | December 8, 2020
Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager, a military
test pilot, became the first to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947.
Afterwards, he was dubbed “the fastest man alive.” He died December 7 at age
97.
Chuck Yeager in the 1940s,
in front of a Bell XS-1 aircraft, in which he broke the sound barrier.
As with all of the
aircraft assigned to him, he named the craft Glamorous Glennis for his wife.
Chuck Yeager, a military test pilot who became the first pilot
to break the sound
barrier – the first to fly faster than the speed of sound and
survive – died December 7, 2020. His wife, Victoria, announced the death late
yesterday from General Yeager’s official Twitter account (@GenChuckYeager). More details about
the death are not available at this time.
Yeager – dubbed the
fastest man alive – continued setting speed records after his
first Mach
1 flight
on the morning of October 14, 1947.
He was born in Myra, West Virginia, on February 13, 1923. He was
97 at his last birthday.
Today, most of us know Yeager from the classic 1983 movie The Right Stuff, based on a 1979 novel
by Tom Wolfe. Yeager later said that
the late actor Sam
Shepard,
who played Yeager in the movie, was
right-on.
Chuck Yeager became the first to break the sound barrier in a
Bell XS-1 aircraft he’d nicknamed Glamorous Glennis in tribute to his
first wife, Glennis Yeager, who died of ovarian cancer in 1990.
The plane is still on display today at the Smithsonian National
Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
We don’t hear much about the sound barrier anymore, because today we
know it isn’t a barrier. It’s a term that describes the sudden and dramatic increase
in aerodynamic
drag and
other effects experienced by an aircraft and its pilot approaching the speed of
sound. In dry air at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), the speed of
sound is 741 miles per hour (1,192 km/hr).
You can read in Yeager’s own words how he broke the sound
barrier in this article at Popular Mechanics, which originally published it in 1987 and
re-ran it in 2016, on the 40th anniversary of Yeager’s historic flight.
Yeager won many awards, including the prestigious Collier
Trophy.
He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September 1941 at the age
of 18. He fought in World War II before being assigned to fly high-performance
aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base in 1947.
In 2012, the 89-year-old
Yeager told reporters that he was still piloting airplanes.
This photo via U.S. Air Force/ Lawrence Crespo is from the 55th anniversary of his sound-breaking
flight.
Bottom line: Chuck Yeager – the first pilot to
break the sound barrier – died on December 7, 2020.
Read more: Chuck Yeager describes how he broke the sound
barrier
https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a4396/1280546/
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Other Voices: Yeager Through the Eyes of His Peers
Courtesy of the Air Force Flight Test Center History Office, Dr.
James Young, Chief Historian
For millions of people
around the world, General Chuck Yeager is the man who best epitomizes the
unique blend of qualities that writer Tom Wolfe captured in the title of his
1979 best seller, The Right Stuff. For Wolfe, Yeager stood at the apex of “the
ziggurat pyramid of flying” and was “the most righteous of all the possessors of the right
stuff.”
While Wolfe’s book may have
made Chuck Yeager a household name, his knowledge of the man came second hand.
He had never witnessed any of his exploits–never seen Yeager in action. And,
when he wrote, he was looking back on a career that had already, long since,
taken on mythic proportions. While his book is, in many ways, a masterful
account of a bygone era, his depiction of those who comprised the flying
“fraternity” at
Edwards in the early 50s is somewhat exaggerated. As General Yeager observed:
“Tom got kind of emotional on the subject.”
The most reliable testimony
on what made Chuck Yeager a legend within that fraternity comes from the men
who actually knew him–the professionals who flew and worked with him. The most
meaningful insights come from his peers.
Read here what Col Yeager’s peers say:
Other Voices: Yeager Through the Eyes of His Peers | General Chuck Yeager
Or https://www.chuckyeager.com/through-the-eyes-of-his-peers
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bob Francia bobfrancia@hotmail.com
Interesting read for aviation enthusiast.
I for one had the privilege of taking a ride in the Angel.
It is one fantastic plane for use around the world especially bush flying.
http://www.angelaircraft.com/
===== Angel_Landscape-2a.qxd
(angelaircraft.com)
Mr. Carl Mortenson complete obituary can
be found on Oolman Funeral Home's website:
https://www.oolman.com/obituaries/Carl-A-Mortenson?obId=19124818#/obituaryInfo
Bob Francia
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