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Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager (born February 13, 1923 in Myra, West Virginia) is a former World War II ace and test pilot. He is most famous for being the first to travel faster than sound in level flight.
Yeager was born into a poor family in West Virginia and joined the army in 1939, serving as an aircraft mechanic. He was selected for flight training in 1942 and soon showed outstanding natural talent as a flyer. Posted to the United Kingdom in 1944, Yeager flew Mustangs in combat, gaining one victory before he was himself shot down over France. He escaped to Spain without being captured and was soon flying with the 363rd Fighter Squadron once more—despite a strict policy that no escaped pilot should fly over enemy territory again.
Yeager demonstrated outstanding eyesight, flying skills, and combat leadership potential; he distinguished himself by becoming the first American pilot to make "ace in a day"—he shot down no less than five enemy aircraft in one mission, finishing the war with 12.5 recognised victories.
Yeager remained in the Air Force after the war, becoming a test pilot and eventually being selected to fly the rocket-powered Bell X-1 in a NACA program to research high-speed flight. Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet. Yeager's X-1 is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.
Yeager later went on to break many other records for speed and altitude. He also was the first American pilot to fly a MiG-15, when one defected to Japan. In 1962 he started the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, which produced many fine astronauts for NASA and the USAF. It was an accident in one of the schools NF-104s that put an end to his record attempts. In 1966 he took command of the 405th Fighter Wing in Southeast Asia (units were scattered including units in South Vietnam). There he racked up another 414 hours of combat time, mostly in a B-57 light bomber. In 1969 he was promoted to brigadier general, and was assigned as the vice-commander of the Seventeenth Air Force.
Finally in 1975 he retired from the Air Force at Norton Air Force Base. Though retired he still spent time flying for the USAF and NASA, as a consulting test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base.
On October 14, 1997 on the 50th anniversary of his historic flight past Mach 1, he flew a new Glamorous Glennis past Mach 1, an F-15D with Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine. He was chased an an F-16 piloted by Bob Hoover, famous air show pilot and the chase pilot for the first Mach 1 flight, who flew with Col Jimmy Doolittle III. This was Yeager's last official flight with the Air Force. At the end of this speech to the crowd he concluded "All that I am... I owe to the Air Force."
He never attended college and often was modest about his background but is considered to be one of the great pilots of all time. Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia was named after him. He was the Chairman of EAA's Young Eagle Program. Yeager served on the presidential commission investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.
Yeager was a primary subject of Tom Wolfe's book, The Right Stuff, and of the movie made from it. He has a short cameo in a scene as bartender who—as an injoke because NASA didn't recruit him as an astronaut because he lacked a college education—wants to serve the NASA recruiters some Scotch and is puzzled when they only want a Coke. He was the prototype flier with the "right stuff."
On February 26, 1945, Yeager married Glennis Dickhouse. They had 4 children. Nearly thirteen years after her death, Yeager married sometmes-actress Victoria Scott D'Angelo, a woman 36 years his junior. Three of his children are currently suing for control of their father's holdings, claiming that D'Angelo married Yeager for his fortune. Yeager contends that his children simply want more money.
A disputed claim by the German pilot Hans Guido Mutke exists to be the first person to break the sound barrier on April 9, 1945 in a Messerschmitt Me 262.
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