Chuck Yeager has died at the age of 97.
Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty Images
Gen. Chuck Yeager, an Air Force test pilot who became the first human to break the sound barrier, died Monday at the age of 97.
His death was announced in a message on his official Twitter account attributed to Yeager’s wife, actress Victoria Scott D’Angelo.
“It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET,” she tweeted. “An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever.”
Fr @VictoriaYeage11 It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever.
— Chuck Yeager (@GenChuckYeager) December 8, 2020
An Air Force captain at the time, Yeager made aviation history at the age 24 when he became the first human to break the speed of sound in 1947. Yeager’s exploits were chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book and the 1983 film The Right Stuff. Yeager is portrayed in the film by actor Sam Shepard but makes a cameo appearance as Fred, a bartender at the legendary Poncho’s Happy Bottom Riding Club.
The Right Stuff follows the early days of the US space program, but Yeager never flew in space. His X-1 is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Charles “Chuck” Elwood Yeager was born Feb. 13, 1923 in Myra, West Virginia. He began his military career in 1941, enlisting out of high school in the US Army Air Forces. Serving initially as an aircraft mechanic, he became a fighter ace in World War II, shooting down five German planes on a single mission.
Yeager stayed in the Air Force after the war ended, becoming a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field in California (now known as Edwards Air Force Base). He gained worldwide notoriety when the Bell X-1 he was piloting reached a speed of 700 miles per hour, Mach 1.06, at 43,000 feet above Edwards Air Force Base in California on Oct. 14. 1947.
The plane was nicknamed Glamorous Glennis after Yeager’s first wife. With his flight, the era of supersonic aviation was born. But at the time, the achievement was classified as top secret, and the Air Force would not confirm the supersonic flight until June 1948.
In the fall of 1953, Yeager set another world speed record when he piloted the X-1A to Mach 2.44, nearly two and a half times the speed of sound.But during this flight, he lost control of his aircraft at 80,000 feet due to a phenomenon largely unknown at the time known as inertia coupling. His plane dropped more than 50,000 feet before he regained control.
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