Today in Technology History
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February 13
As part of our year-long commemoration of the centennial of flight, today we celebrate the 80th birthday of a living legend of aviation: Chuck Yeager, the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound.
Charles Elwood Yeager (pronounced YAY-ger) was born on February 13, 1923 in West Virginia. His parents worked hard to make a living and raise their five children, and Yeager grew up as a competitive country kid, hunting, fishing and swimming.
After finishing high school, Yeager joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1941. At the time, he had never even seen an airplane, and he enlisted as a mechanic. Two years later, he became a "flight officer" -- meaning he was a noncommissioned officer who flew planes.
Yeager flew as a fighter pilot in Europe during the last two years of World War II. In his first eight missions, he shot down two German planes. On his ninth mission, he was shot down and wounded. The twenty-year-old was rescued by members of the French resistance who then helped him flee into Spain, but once there he was captured and put in jail. He escaped by cutting the bars of his cell with a saw he hid in his uniform. With the help of the British Royal Air Force, he then escaped back to England -- where he resumed flying.
In October 1944, Yeager managed to destroy five German fighter planes in a single dogfight. He later damaged and shot down some of the most advanced German planes. In total, he was credited with shooting down about a dozen enemy planes by the end of the war.
After the war, Yeager briefly served as a flight instructor. He then became a test pilot, and it was in that capacity that he broke the sound barrier in 1947. (We'll write much more about that historic flight later this year, on the exact anniversary of the day.) In all, Yeager served as a test pilot for 15 years, flying dangerous secret missions in experimental planes. It was a risky business, he had many close calls, and he cheated death more than once.
He served at several posts in Europe during the 1950s, then was put in charge of the Air Force's space program. (This was during the brief period when the U.S. was training military astronauts, in addition to the civilian astronauts of NASA.) He flew missions in Vietnam, and retired in 1975 at the age of 52 with the rank of brigadier general. Since then, his career has been chronicled in books and on film.
We join General Yeager's many admirers in wishing him a happy 80th birthday.
Related links:
A revamped version of Chuck Yeager's official homepage went online last night, in honor of the general's birthday.
Use these links for more sites dedicated to Yeager:
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| Equity | Gov't & Politics | Innovation | National Security | Personal Security |
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