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Chuck Yeager Biography |
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Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager (born on February 13, 1923, in Lincoln County, West Virginia, 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 legend (person) of aviation, for he became the first pilot to travel faster than sound Mach number in level and climbing flight. Later he 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. /b> 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. 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. Air Force career Yeager enlisted as a private in the US Army Air Forces on September 12, 1941, and became an aircraft mechanic at George Air Force Base, 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 Warrant officer at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, on March 10, 1943. Assigned to the 357th Fighter Group at Tonopah, Nevada, he initially trained as a fighter pilot flying P-39s 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. Escape and Evasion Case File for Flight Officer Charles (Chuck) E. Yeager) He escaped to Spain on March 30 with the help of the French Resistance and returned to England on May 15, 1944. 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), flying skills, and combat leadership; he distinguished himself by becoming the first aviator 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). 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, 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 Col. Albert Boyd, head of the Aeronautical Systems Flight Test Division. Yeager remained in the United States Air Force (USAF) after the war, becoming a test pilot and eventually being selected to fly the rocket-powered Bell X-1 in a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics program to research high-speed flight. Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental X-1 at Mach number 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 National Air and Space Museum. Yeager was awarded the Mackay Trophy and Collier Trophy in 1948 for his mach-transcending flight, and the Harmon Trophy in 1954. 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 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 Jacqueline Cochran, a close friend, as she became the first woman to fly faster than sound. However, on November 20, the NACA's Douglas Skyrocket and its pilot, Albert 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 Wright brothers in which Crossfield was to be called "the fastest man alive." The Ridley/Yeager USAF team achieved Mach 2.3 prior to December 17, 1953. Yeager was foremost a fighter pilot and held several squadron and wing commands. From May 1955 to July 1957 he commanded the F-86-equipped 417th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (50th Fighter-Bomber Wing) at Frankfurt-Hahn Airport, Germany, and Toul-Rosieres Air Base, France; and from 1957 to 1960 the F-100-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 F-104 that put an end to his record attempts. Between December 1963 and January 1964, The Crash of Chuck Yeager's NF-104A, December 10 1963 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 B-57 Canberra light bomber. In February 1968, he was assigned command of the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, and led the F-4 Phantom II wing in South Korea during the USS Pueblo. On June 22, 1969, he was promoted to Brigadier General, and was assigned in July as the vice-commander of the Seventeenth Air Force. General Yeager's awards and decorations include: 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 Air Force Base. 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. 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-15 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, George W. 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 Reagan. 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 Experimental Aircraft Association#Young Eagles. The state of West Virginia honored Yeager with a marker along Corridor G (Appalachian Development Highway System) (part of U.S. Route 119) in his home Lincoln County on October 19 2006, as well as renamed part of the highway the Yeager Highway. Yeager Comes Home, WOWK-TV, August 19 2006 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. Yeager now resides in the Penn Valley area of Grass Valley, California, where he is a widower and a local hero. 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 Coca-Cola. 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. Controversies Many knowledgeable 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. 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. On February 26, 1945, Yeager married Glennis Dickhouse (died 1990). They had four children. In August 2003, nearly 13 years after her death, he married actress Victoria Scott D'Angelo, 36 years his junior. The Right Stuff at war, The Age, August 31 2004 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. Record-Setting Pilot Chuck Yeager Sues His Children, New York Times, June 7 2006 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. Quotes Trivia Video games Chuck Yeager acted as a technical consultant for and appeared in two flight simulator video games produced by Electronic Arts. 
Courtesy of: http://www.wikipedia.org/ |
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