Chuck Yeager Quotes

Two of Chuck Yeager’s favorite quotes are “You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up, but you don’t give up,” and “You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done” (“Chuck Yeager Quotes” Web). Chuck Yeager is arguably one of the most, if not the most, honorable, most decorated, and most distinguished Air Force pilot in U.S. history. He left a huge footprint in the history of American aviation.

Chuck Yeager was born on February 13, 1923, in Myra, West Virginia. Chuck was always a curious kid. Hunting and fishing interested him the most. He loved being outdoors surrounded by nature. He

was also interested in mechanical engineering. For example, he could take his father’s truck apart and reassemble it. As a child, he excelled at mathematical abilities and physical coordination. When The United States joined World War II on December 7, 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Yeager had been enlisted in the Army Air Corps since that September. He was accepted into the Flying Sergeant program and was a standout straight away. He had extraordinary 20/10 eyesight, incredible physical coordination, and an uncanny ability to stay focused in stressful situations. Chuck was trained as an aircraft mechanic. His knack for understanding machinery made it easy for him to troubleshoot and repair problems with the airplane. He completed primary pilot training at Hemet, CA, followed by basic in BT-13s at Gardner Field in Taft, CA, and advanced training at Luke Field, AZ, where he earned his pilot’s wings with Class 43-C on March 10, 1943.
He joined the 363rd Fighter Squadron as a non-commissioned flight officer at the Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range, NV, and began training in fighter tactics in the Bell P-39 Airacobra.

The 363rd continued training at various stateside locations until November when the unit shipped out for England, leaving their P-39s behind. The unit was equipped with North American’s P-51 Mustang, having been recognized as the best all-around fighter plane of World War II, once in England and assigned to the Eighth Air Force. His first mount was a P-51B, which he named Glamorous Glen after his fiancée. He married Glennis Dickhouse on February 26, 1945. He named all of his planes Glamorous Glen, after Glennis. He entered combat in February 1944. He claimed one Me-109 before being shot down on his eighth combat mission on March 5. He evaded capture and rejoined his unit in England with the help of the French underground. He resumed combat operations in August. He was soon flying the P-51D model, which he named Glamorous Glen III, and in which he achieved most of his aerial victories. Blessed with exceptional 20/10 vision, he combined this advantage with cunning, concentration, relentless ferocity and superb piloting skills to accumulate a final total of 12.5 aerial victories, which included five Me109s on October 12 and four FW 190s on November 27. He was promoted to captain when he completed his final flight on January 15, 1945. He had a total of 64 combat missions and a total

of 270 combat hours.
After World War II, Yeager was a flight instructor at Perrin Field, TX. After a short stint as a flight instructor, he was assigned as an assistant maintenance officer in the Fighter Section of the Flight Test Division at Wright Field, OH. Wright Field was the center of Army Air Forces R and D. Since his job was to check out all aircraft coming out of maintenance, he got to fly nearly every fighter on the flight line. He demonstrated such remarkable skill that he was selected to fly in air shows. During one of the air shows in September 1945, he made his first trip to Muroc Army Air Field, which is now known as Edwards AFB. There he flew astonishing service trials on the new P-80A Shooting Star, America’s first operational jet fighter. Col Albert Boyd, who was considered to be the father of modern Air Force flight test, was chief of the Flight Test Division. He was tough and absolutely unyielding in his standards. He was trying to construct a cadre of test pilots that would possibly set industry-wide principles for that line of work. Under his examination, only the very best pilots were carefully chosen to enter the new test pilot school at Wright Field. After closely observing and flying with Yeager, Boyd handpicked him to join the school in January 1946. He was challenged with the advanced academics because he only had a high school diploma but managed to graduate.
In June 1947 Colonel Boyd made one of the most important decisions of his career.

He chose Yeager, one of his most junior test pilots, to attempt to become the first person to exceed the speed of sound in the rocket-powered Bell XS-1. He chose Yeager, because he considered him to be the best instinctive pilot that he had ever seen, who had demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to remain composed and concentrated in tense situations. Furthermore, the X-1 program certainly promised to be stressful. After three glide flights in the Bell XS-1 rocket research plane, which he named Glamorous Glennis, he flew it to a speed of 0.85 Mach on his first powered flight on 29 August. He encountered severe buffeting and sudden nose-up and -down trim changes during his next six flights. Then, during his eighth flight on October 10, he lost control altogether, as a shock wave formed along the hinge line of the X-1 elevator. The X-1 was designed with a moving tail and Captain Jack Ridley convinced Yeager that changing its angle of frequency in small increments, he could control the craft. This had never been attempted at extremely high speeds, but Yeager was game to give it a try on the next flight. On 14 Oct. he dropped away from the B-29, fired all four chambers of his engine in rapid sequence and accelerated away from the B-29. The X-1 Glamorous Glennis rapidly accelerated to 0.98 Mach and then, at 43,000 feet, the needle on his Mach meter jumped off the scale. Yeager had just

crossed the invisible threshold known as the sound barrier. He attained a top speed of Mach 1.06 (700 mph). When Yeager’s achievement was finally declassified in June of 1948, he was quickly bestowed the status of “The Fastest Man Alive,” and was awarded the most prestigious honors in aviation.
While his flights in the X-1 assured him all the celebrity he could ever need, it was his performance over the next seven years that earned him a legendary status within the experimental test pilots at Edwards. Yeager called these years his “golden age of flying and fun.” It was an age when the limits of time, space and the imagination were being dramatically expanded. Edwards AFB was the place where a whole stable of exotic research aircraft were probing the unknowns of flight. It was also the place where new experimental prototypes appeared on the flight line in endless numbers. Yeager was in the middle of it, loving every minute. He became the test pilot of choice among engineers. He flew with such extraordinary precision that his data points were always right on target. He also demonstrated an unrivaled ability to quickly ferret out and understand an airplane’s flaws. He was always flying above and beyond the edge of the envelope. Yeager repeatedly demonstrated an uncanny ability to calmly think his way through catastrophic situations. He would take appropriate action, and bring his aircraft back in one piece. He was the squadron commander of 417th Fighter Bomber Squadron,