Chuck Yeager, 1923-2020

[jon-nyc]

Dies on Pearl Harbor day.

RIP, General.

[Aqua Letifer]

Damn.

My dad taught Astronomy and was big on test pilots. I got into 'em, too, especially the guys who transitioned over to Project Mercury.

There's a picture of me from fourth grade doing a school report on Chuck Yeager. I had on a gas station onesie (I forget where my dad got it, but he got one in my size somehow from what I remember; dunno how that was possible) for my test pilot suit and had on a stuffed army backpack my uncle gave me to be my parachute pack.

[kluurs]

The right stuff and then some...

[89th]

@Aqua-Letifer said in Chuck Yeager, 1923-2020:

Damn.

My dad taught Astronomy and was big on test pilots. I got into 'em, too, especially the guys who transitioned over to Project Mercury.

There's a picture of me from fourth grade doing a school report on Chuck Yeager. I had on a gas station onesie (I forget where my dad got it, but he got one in my size somehow from what I remember; dunno how that was possible) for my test pilot suit and had on a stuffed army backpack my uncle gave me to be my parachute pack.

Hahaha love it!
RIP Chuck.

[George K]

Saw him, briefly, at the EAA Fly-In in 1997, 1998(?). He looked really good for a man in his 70s. I think this was his plane, but I can't be sure.

[George K]

By the way, Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" is a fabulous book - I should re-read it. My recollection of it is that it was really more about Yeager and the test pilots than the Mercury Seven.

[Copper]

His is still the voice other pilots imitate.

RIP Mr. Yeager

[George K]

@Copper said in Chuck Yeager, 1923-2020:

His is still the voice other pilots imitate.

RIP Mr. Yeager

“That particular voice may sound vaguely Southern or Southwestern, but it is specifically Appalachian in origin. It originated in the mountains of West Virginia, in the coal country, in Lincoln County, so far up in the hollows that, as the saying went, "they had to pipe in daylight." In the late 1940's and early 1950's this up-hollow voice drifted down from on high, from over the high desert of California, down, down, down, from the upper reaches of the Brotherhood into all phases of American aviation. It was amazing. It was Pygmalion in reverse. Military pilots and then, soon, airline pilots, pilots from Maine and Massachusetts and the Dakotas and Oregon and everywhere else, began to talk in that poker-hollow West Virginia drawl, or as close to it as they could bend their native accents. It was the drawl of the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff: Chuck Yeager.”

Excerpt From: Tom Wolfe. “The Right Stuff.” Apple Books.

[George K]

There's a scene in the movie, "The Right Stuff" where the assistant bartender brings a meal over to some of the Mercury Seven.

That's the real Chuck Yeager.

[jon-nyc]

Kevin Williamson sums it up nicely.

[Frank_W]

Truly... One of the original American bad-asses. RIP, Mr. Yeager, sir.

[George K]