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picture this you're 50 000 feet in the air it controls an experimental tiny rocket-powered
airplane designed for one purpose to fly as fast as it possibly can your mission is to do something
no human being has ever done before and you know that any number of things one small mistake a tiny
flaw in the plane's design bad luck or the whims of fate could conspire to lead to your sudden and
very violent death most people would say you'd be crazy to even consider doing such a thing but then
most people aren't chuck yeager over a career that spans seven decades jaeger became one of
america's most famous aviators primarily known for his feat of being the first pilot to fly
faster than the speed of sound in 1947 but chuck jaeger was so much more than that one
admittedly awe-inspiring flight he was also a war hero but a trailblazing test pilot who helped to
expand our knowledge of the way aircraft behaved at high speeds and high altitudes
a critical foundation for mankind's ascent into space he also transcended the cockpit
to become a cultural icon with books and movies being made about his deeds we'll tell you today
about chuck yeager's extraordinary life and hopefully we won't go too fast for you
charles el rodriguez was born on february 13 1923
on a farm in rural west virginia chuck did want to be a farmer so with few other options
available he joined the army a few months after graduating from high school in 1941 originally
enlisted aircraft mechanic the outbreak of world war ii provided the catalyst for his advancement
as he was accepted into flight school and commissioned as an officer sent to europe
jaeger flew p-51 mustang fighters and participated in deadly aerial duels with the german luftwaffe
in march 1944 his airplane was shot down over occupied france and he spent three weeks
behind enemy lines before escaping to neutral spain with the help of the french resistance
returning to england jaeger protested against a policy that prohibited him from flying over
enemy territory since he had already been shot down once and had been helped by the resistance
after an appeal to supreme allied commander general dwight d eisenhower jaeger was given
permission to resume flying jaeger would go on to see more combat including a memorable occasion
when he became an ace in a day being credited with downing five aircraft on a single mission
he ended the war with 11.5 aerial victories on his tally as well as both the silver and bronze stars
and the distinguished flying cross he had his pick of assignments when he returned to the us
but instead of getting himself some cushy desk job jaeger got himself involved in work that
was arguably more dangerous than anything he'd seen in the war he became a test pilot
the post-war world was one of remarkable scientific advancement in all fields but
particularly in aviation as the us military tapped the knowledge of german scientists captured at the
end of the conflict in europe nazi germany had been at the forefront of aviation technology
including the first operational jet-powered fighter and rudimentary ballistic missiles and
the united states wanted to incorporate that knowledge for itself especially
once it found out that the soviet union was doing the same thing to create aircraft that
could fly faster and higher than anything ever seen before the military needed to test various
designs in the air most of this testing was conducted at moroccan army airfield in the
mojave desert of california today called edwards air force base the pilot stationed at morocc
were an eclectic bunch and with good reason being a test pilot was exceedingly dangerous
on average each pilot had a 53 chance of being killed in the line of duty meaning
that each man brave enough to climb into one of these experimental planes knew
that they were taking their life into their hands each time they went up among this group of pilots
was 24 year old chuck yeager he was considered one of the best which is why i was selected for
one of the most important test flights in aviation history up to that point aircraft designers had
been unable to design a plane that was capable of breaking the so-called sound barrier firing
faster than the speed of sound approximately 750 miles per hour the stresses placed on both pilot
and plane as they approached mach 1 were enormous and even if the airframe survived without tearing
itself apart it was not uncommon for a pilot going that fast to lose control and crash
which usually meant certain death in 1947 the united states air force believed that it had a
plane that could break the sound barrier the bell x-1 a state-of-the-art rocket-powered plane that
was designed to be dropped from a modified b-29 bomber at altitude to save fuel but who would be
brave enough or crazy enough to fly it not top bell aircraft pilot slick goodlin who refused
to make an attempt on the sound barrier unless he was paid a king's ransom of 150 thousand dollars
the equivalent of 1.75 million today the military turned to jaeger who agreed to go for it on the
14th of october 1947 chuck yeager strapped into the x1 that had christened a glamorous glennis
after his wife preparing to fly faster than any man had ever gone before in a tiny plane painted
bright orange to make it more visible to observers on the ground what he hadn't told anyone was
that two days before the flight had fallen while horseback riding and broken two ribs he concealed
the injury from the air force so wouldn't be pulled from the mission the pain was so bad that
he needed to use a broom handle to secure the x1's hatch since she couldn't reach it by hand when
the b-29 mother ship reached an altitude of 45 thousand feet jaeger's plane was dropped from it
and he activated the engine shooting off across the southern california sky faster and faster he
flew calling out his progress over the radio mach .97.98.99 and then ground observers heard a loud
bang exploding across the desert everyone assumed jaeger had crashed and feared the worst for the
young pilot but what they'd heard was actually a sound unfamiliar to their ears a sonic boom
an extremely loud shock wave that occurs when an aircraft reaches a speed faster than the
speed of sound he'd done it by the time the x1 landed safely chuck yeager was a national hero
the first recorded supersonic man alright we'll get back to today's video in just a second but
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again rather than resting on his laurels he continued to fly dangerous and important test
flights for the air force in 1953 set a new speed record when his upgraded x1a aircraft reached a
speed of back 2.44 granted almost immediately afterwards he lost control of his plane and
dropped over 50 000 feet in less than a minute but he was able to recover and land without further
incident and as the aviation saying goes any landing you walk away from is a good one after a
stint commanding squadrons of fighter jets in 1962 jager was given a promotion to colonel and a new
assignment the first commandant of the usaf air force research pilot school which was given the
responsibility for training something totally new astronauts jaeger and the other test pilots worked
on high speed high altitude flights and helped pave the way for sending men into outer space
and with many people considering jaeger to be one of the air force's most outstanding
pilots it seemed only fitting that he'd be put in charge of training america's best to
eventually send them to space from the outside it might seem strange that someone as experienced
as jaeger was wasn't selected himself to become an astronaut jaeger was the same age as alan shepard
the first american in space and had far more experience as both a test pilot and a combat
aviator but the key difference between them was that shepard had graduated from the united states
naval academy while jaeger had never progressed past a high school education and had started off
his career as an enlisted man nasa and the u.s government only wanted college graduates in the
astronaut core as part of the carefully cultivated public image that they were creating around the
space program being made up of america's best and brightest for his part jaeger never appeared to be
bothered about not being asked to go to space in his autobiography he essentially claimed
astronauts were more glorified lab rats the actual pilots calling them essentially passengers
thrown the right switches on instructions from the ground still there's no way to know for sure if
jager would have taken them up on the offer if it had been extended eventually the decision was made
to make nasa an entirely civilian run agency and responsibility for training astronaut candidates
was taken away from the military branches still 26 men trained by jaeger went on to become astronauts
including frank borman commander of the apollo 8 mission that was the first to orbit the moon
and michael collins the pilot of the apollo 11 mission where neil armstrong became the first man
to walk on the moon's surface in one instance however jaeger found himself at the center of
a controversy about who wasn't selected to be an astronaut rather than who was according to jaeger
he was forced by air force chief of staff curtis lemay to increase the size of his class program
so that a black candidate ed dwight was included lamay told jaeger that he was receiving pressure
from the kennedy white house on the subject and jaeger had no choice but to acquiesce
dwight was ultimately not selected to become an astronaut despite a massive publicity campaign
surrounding his candidacy which dwight blamed on racial discrimination in his autobiography
dwight intensity faced bigotry and prejudice from jaeger and the other instructors at
arps while he was enrolled there and that they did everything in their power to force him to fail
out of pure racism jaeger on the other hand argued that while he and his instructors felt
resentful that dwight had been shoved down their throats for political reasons he treated dwight as
barely as he did every other student and that the reason he struggled was because he wasn't as good
of a pilot as the other students were the truth as usual probably lies somewhere in the middle dwight
probably did face racial bigotry while enrolled at arps an unfortunately common occurrence
considering the racist attitudes prevalent at the time however there is virtually no evidence beyond
dwight's own accounts that jaeger himself was a racist or behaved discriminately towards black
people and in any case jaeger had no control over who nasa did or didn't pick to join it
to astronaut corps anyway gion bluford would eventually become the first african american
to go into space 20 years later in 1983 aboard space shuttle challenger december 1963 jaeger's
test flying career came to an abrupt end when the nf-104 jetty was piloting went dead stick
losing complete control and entering a flat spin after losing 95 000 feet of altitude diego decided
the aircraft was unrecoverable and triggered the ejection seat before he could fully separate from
his ejection seat the white hot rocket motor struck him in the face shattering his helmet
visor and scenting his emergency oxygen supply on fire yeah suffered serious burns to his face
which required a long and painful recovery process after this near-death experience jaeger decided to
test flying and setting records was a younger man's game that didn't mean that he took his
foot off the accelerator however in 1966 he was given command of a fighter squadron and command
admissions over south vietnam as that conflict was heating up flying the f-4 phantom fighter in
1969 he was promoted to brigadier general and made the vice commander of the 17th air force
stationed in west germany he would later go on to serve as a diplomatic advisor to the pakistani air
force putting him at the center of a potential diplomatic incident when the passenger plane
assigned to him was destroyed during an air raid by the indian air force during the 1971
indo-pakistani war yeager rage show anyone that would listen that indira gandhi had ordered his
plane destroyed to give uncle sam the finger in 1975 after a 33-year career general jaeger retired
from the air force his fame as a pilot had long ago been eclipsed by that of the astronauts and
he might have faded into a relative historical footnote where not for the publication of a book
called the right stuff in 1979 by author and journalist tom wolf in the book woolf shows
that the achievements of the mercury seven the original men picked to be astronauts by nasa
would not have gotten off the ground were not for the groundwork laid by test pilots such as chuck
yeager the best-selling book was adapted into a film in 1983 with sam shepard portraying jaeger
on screen jaeger himself appeared in a cameo role in the critically acclaimed film which introduced
his name and deeds to a whole new generation of americans probably never heard of him jaeger's
newfound popularity found him thrust back into the public in a variety of ways his autobiography
published in 1985 was a bestseller so were a series of video games published by electronic arts
that featured jaeger's name and likeness and that he served as a technical advisor on he was twice
invited to drive the pace car for the indianapolis 500 and he appeared in a series of television
advertisements for auto parts company ac delco on a more somber note jaeger was appointed by
president reagan to the rogers commission which investigated the catastrophic destruction of
the space shuttle challenger in january 1986 during a launch watched by millions of people
on live tv the explosion just 73 seconds into the flight killed all seven astronauts on board
including new hampshire school teacher christa mcauliffe mcauliffe was supposed to be the first
ordinary person in space the focus of a massive publicity campaign that now had turned to disaster
over the course of four months jaeger and the rest of the commission including former astronauts
neil armstrong and sally ride held hearings and collected evidence to uncover what went wrong the
commission found that a critical part inside one of the boost rockets failed because of freezing
cold weather at the site on the day of launch this allowed a jet of white hot burning gas to
leak out of the side of the rocket punching a hole in the external fuel tank and igniting
the contents blowing the entire shuttle apart the commission's report was highly critical of nasa's
leadership for ignoring warnings from engineers and prioritizing their launch over safety
jaeger's post-retirement years were largely spent in comfort having amassed a sizable fortune from
book royalties endorsement contracts and speaking engagements jaeger lived with his wife glenis in
northern california until she died of ovarian cancer in 1990 after 45 years of marriage the
couple had raised four children together two of which followed in their father's footsteps
with long careers in the air force retirement didn't put a damper on the old test pilot's
thirst for speed however on the 50th anniversary of jaeger's historic mach 1 flight in 1997 jaeger
once again broke the sound barrier piloting an f15 fighter jet you think that's incredible just
considered this wasn't even the last time he'd do this 15 years later at the eye-popping age
of 89 yeager did it again though on this flight he consented to make the flight as a passenger
the very fact that an 89 year old man would subject himself to the rigors of supersonic flight
says a lot about his character not the jaeger's golden years were free from controversy however
in 2000 the 77 year old flying ace met and fell in love with victoria de angelo an actress 35
years as junior in 2003 they married in a private ceremony the match caused a rift between jaeger
and his children who believed that victoria had only married their father for his money
a lawsuit was filed and then a counter suit and the litigation dragged on for years in the end the
court sided with jaeger against his children and jaeger would tell reporters that he didn't care
what his children thought about his life choices he was going to do whatever he wanted to be happy
on december 7 2020 chuck yeager died in los angeles hospital at the age of 97. the death of
this american hero touched off a wave of mourning nationwide his body was flown aboard air force two
the vice president of the united states plane to charleston west virginia where he was buried
with full military honours in a ceremony that took place on january the 15th 2021 jaeger was so well
respected that his funeral briefly brought both republican and democratic politicians together
to pay their respects often called america's greatest pilot chuck yeager represents the
bridge between the rough and tumble aerial cowboys that typified the fighter pilots of the two world
wars with the highly educated technology savvy professionals that pilot today's modern machines
though described by tom wolf as having the right stuff the combination of guts and daring needed
to do things like break the sound barrier and take other risks jaeger himself disputed that
he said that his skill in the cockpit could be attributed to his exceptional vision a
thorough knowledge of his airplane and how it operated and more than a little good luck
in any case his contributions to aviation will long be remembered not only by historians but
by military officers space enthusiasts or by anybody who watches the books and films made
about his life and achievements not bad for a humble farm boy from west virginia
you