I am in mourning. Chuck Yeager has died.

American test pilot Chuck Yeager, who was the first man to break the sound barrier, has died aged 97. He was one of my heroes.

Yeager was a fighter ace in World War Two, flying Mustangs with the United States Army Air Force when he became a double ace with 11 ‘kills’. But my admiration for him relates to his bravery as a test pilot.

This is the man who first flew faster than the speed of sound in 1947. He managed the feat in the Bell X-1 which he named “Glamorous Glennis” (after his wife) and which I have seen many times hanging from the ceiling of the National Air & Space Museum in Washington [for an account of the breaking of the sound barrier click here].

This is the conqueror of the X-1A after a fall of 51,000 feet. the burnt and battered survivor of a bale out from an F-104, and the veteran of 127 missions flown over Vietnam.

Part of his story was told in Tom Wolfe’s wonderful book “The Right Stuff” and, in the film of the same name [for my review click here], Yeager was played by Sam Shepard. The full account can be found in the engaging biography which Yeager wrote with Leo Janos.


 




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