Happy Birthday Chuck Yeager

A man with balls of steel. For those less educated, he was the first pilot to break the speed of sound. Who wants to be the first one to test that out?

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Who wants to be the first one to test that out?

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Didn't he have broken ribs during it too? And never told the doctors.

ETA: Also should've been the first, or one of the first, Americans in space imo.

I met General Yeager 6 years ago in Afghanistan. I couldn't believe an 89 year old man was still making the exhausting journey to a combat zone half way around the world just to meet and greet the troops. He even brought his family.

He spoke for about 30 minutes mostly on the loss of control pilots experienced at high mach speeds due to air moving so quickly over the wings surface it created a vacuum over the wing's tailing edge where the ailerons were located making them useless. He came up with idea to get rid of ailerons and just make the whole wing movable. It was awesome to hear how they engineered by the seat of their pants.

Are you kidding me!?
An American badass hero. Truly made when men where men.
One of my favs, up there in the American hero lore.
God Bless you Chuck Yeager!

He had giant robots named after him

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It was awesome to hear how they engineered by the seat of their pants.

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Well Ridley did shorten Mr. Russell’s broom stick so Yeager so “wang” down the door on the X-1 while chewing a stick of Beamans.

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ETA: Also should've been the first, or one of the first, Americans in space imo.

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He had no interest in being a astronaut, did not consider their role very important. He called the Mercury astronauts nothing more than "spam in a can", and told one of them to "make sure they wipe the monkey shite off the seat before you get into the capsule>"

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He had no interest in being a astronaut

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I though he did, but his lack of education, a high school grad, kept him from being included with the first group and he felt his flying abilities rather than higher education should have been considered.

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I though he did, but his lack of education, a high school grad, kept him from being included with the first group and he felt his flying abilities rather than higher education should have been considered.

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It did. Thus the high altitude stunts in century series aircraft to keep the altitude record as long as possible. Test pilot school didn't want him either because he didn't have a degree, but he had a pissed off general in his corner to push his appointment through. Not so much at NASA which is a civilian agency.

Make no mistake that the whole spam in a can thing is sour grapes on his part. If he'd gotten selected, his arrogant arse would have been the first one talking down to mere air pilots.

He did a lot and has giant balls, nobody is taking that from him, but he's a bit of a prick and could hold a grudge.