Chuck Yeager First Pilot To Fly Faster Than Sound- 90 Today

· by · in American History, History, Space Flight, West Virginia. ·

File:Chuck Yeager.jpg

Chuck Yeager turns 90 today. He was born on this day 1923 in Myra, West Virginia. Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than sound back in 1947. On October 14th, 1947 Yeager flew the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 past the sound barrier at 45,000 feet. Yeager is one of the guys that the astronauts of the late 1950’s-1960’s would look up to an admire. In the 1980’s with the book “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe and the movie that followed, Chuck Yeager’s popularity and fame soared. Just this past October at age 89, Yeager broke the sound barrier again.

5 responses to “Chuck Yeager First Pilot To Fly Faster Than Sound- 90 Today”

  3. I grew up in the 60s space race and man what an exciting period in my life, especially being a career Marine Corps brat 🙂
    All my friends had at least 5 Apollo space crafts of different sorts and at least one Lunar landing craft…When they had a blast off we were glued to the tele’…
    Nice post and thank you, it brought back so many wonderful memories.

    • I grew up in the same era. I remember when I was 7 or 8 I wanted to be an astronaut. That was my first ‘career ambition.” Years later I am teaching and I mentioned that to my students- and I said “There is a reason I could never have been an astronaut. Anyone know why?” {I was thinking- I am too tall to qualify to be an astronaut as the answer} A boy raises his hand and says’ You’re not smart enough.” I had to laugh. He was right. Two reasons why I never could have become an astronaut.

    • 🙂 hahahahahaha…Love the story and see, short people do have an advantage and aside from popular myth, we do got somebody to love too, some times…and being a Southerner, I’m more smart alecky than school smart…
      Remember the Willis movie Armageddon and the kids were running around in mock flight of the Space Shuttle…I can’t tell you how many times we did the same when one of our Apollo spacecraft blasted off…What an awesome era, jam packed with drama & excitement and man, the great music…
      I don’t know if anyone is knows this, but the name Apollo “God of Light & Music” was given by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who played a big role in the Apollo space program and would remain a long time manager at NASA…He was just, absolutely instrumental to the space race and our jettisoning the Russians! 🙂
      Just a great American and what a testimony to American ingenuity and technology, one of our many unsung hero’s…Just love the guy 🙂

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