Happy Birthday Chuck Yeager!

[JJEH]

He would have been 100 today!

Aircraft mechanic, flying ace, wing commander, record setting test pilot, instructor, pace car driver, President Reagan appointee, technical advisor, print advertising star, tv star and I don't know what else.

A man I'm not worthy to shake hands with, that's for sure.

Happy Birthday General!

 

[NYlakesider]

He would have been 100 today!

Aircraft mechanic, flying ace, wing commander, record setting test pilot, instructor, pace car driver, President Reagan appointee, technical advisor, print advertising star, tv star and I don't know what else.

A man I'm not worthy to shake hands with, that's for sure.

Happy Birthday General!

Fork Knox named a safe series after him, their top of the line of course!

 

[Onomea]

Very cool guy. There are various interviews with him on YouTube. Here he is on breaking the sound barrier:

Rare Chuck Yeager Interview on Breaking the Sound Barrier in the Bell X 1 - YouTube

 

[Truckman]

Aircraft mechanic, flying ace, wing commander, record setting test pilot, instructor, pace car driver, President Reagan appointee, technical advisor, print advertising star, tv star and I don't know what else.

Add hunter to that list...I've read and re-read his autobiography more than once...He said he owed his uncanny success both on the ground and in the air to his almost unheard of eyesight...He had the ability to focus his eyes out to infinity...In the clear air over Germany at patrol altitudes he could pick out little dots many miles away...Judging the movement, direction and speed of the dots he could determine whether the dots were a flock of geese or a flight of Messerschmitts, then lead his group to a position where they could ambush the enemy...

In one battle he encountered one of the new German ME 262 jet fighters, and worked his way behind it in his P-51 from above...From this position he could chase the jet right into the ground without firing a shot...If you don't have his autobiography, "Yeager," do yourself a favor and buy it...Amazon has it......Ben

 

[Rustyt1953]

I have mentioned before that I got the autographs and handshakes of both Generals Yeager and Olds at a Dayton Air Show.

 

[Truckman]

I have mentioned before that I got the autographs and handshakes of both Generals Yeager and Olds at a Dayton Air Show.

My two all time heroes...I'd like to shake the hand that shook those two hands......Ben

 

[Igiveup]

I met, shook hands with Chuck at a Sacramento sports show many moons ago. I was suprised how short he was, but I heard most fighter jockys are.

 

[Targets Guy]

Honored to have met with him when he was at Nellis AFB in 1966.


RIP, General.

 

[Beemerguy53]

Chuck Yeager was a true American original, a sterling example of The Greatest Generation.

He used to speak annually at the National Air and Space Museum (usually on or around the anniversary of his sound barrier flight) and I greatly enjoyed hearing him. He was witty, salty, and very direct...a non-nonsense kind of guy.

I remember him talking about shooting down the very first jet aircraft he ever saw. He bounced an ME-262 as it was making its landing approach, and the pilot crash-landed. Yeager told the audience that what he did wasn't very sporting, but war is war...

Around 1987, I took this photo of my firstborn standing next to General Yeager. The next year I took the enlarged photo back to the NASM to have him autograph it. It's archive-framed, and hangs in my home today...

 

[Hair Trigger]

He would have been 100 today!

Aircraft mechanic, flying ace, wing commander, record setting test pilot, instructor, pace car driver, President Reagan appointee, technical advisor, print advertising star, tv star and I don't know what else.

Add beer drinker to the list. I had the privilege of meeting him while I was TDY at Brooks AFB in San Antonio back in 1988. Our Flight Nurse class had listened to a presentation he'd made at the School of Aerospace Medicine, and one of us left a note on his VOQ door inviting him to the O Club that evening for drinks.

He showed up and stayed for about three hours, I think everybody in the room got a picture with him and an autograph. He had a beer in his hand from the time he walked in until he left. I know it wasn't the only beer he drank because I bought him 3 myself. He was a very direct individual, the kind of person that when you ask him a question, you better be prepared for an answer you weren't expecting.