Pilot Chuck Yeager’s resolve to break the sound barrier was made of the right stuff

Even as his colleagues fell from the sky during training, US test pilot Chuck Yeager says he did not entertain fear.

US pilot Chuck Yeager, with his Bell XS-1, was the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947.

EVEN as his colleagues fell from the sky during training, US test pilot Chuck Yeager says he did not entertain fear.

“You’re wasting your time,” he says. “Religious people say: ‘When you get into trouble in an aeroplane, don’t you pray?’ No, God can’t help me. I’ve got to help myself. You never give up.”

As the best test pilot on Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) in California’s Mojave Desert, on October 14, 1947, Yeager was selected to attempt to break the sonic barrier, then believed impossible by many aviators, in a two-year old experimental Bell XS-1 rocket plane.

British test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr died in a similar attempt in 1946, when his de Havilland Swallow DH 108 broke up at about Mach 0.9. The first person believed to have moved faster than the speed of sound, Luftwaffe test pilot Lothar Sieber flew 14km in 55 seconds in a Bachem Ba 349 “Natter” rocket in March 1945, but perished when it slammed into the earth.

Pilot Chuck Yeager in a Bell XS-1.

Yeager was born on February 13, 1923 in Myra, West Virginia in the Appalachian foothills, where his father Albert had a natural gas drilling business. Yeager was an average student, but excelled at mathematics, manual dexterity and physical co-ordination. He was also fascinated by his father’s generators, pumps and pressure regulators, which he serviced as a teenager. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September 1941, when he first saw an aircraft, and was crew chief on an AT-11 when selected for pilot training in July 1942.

“I was a gifted mechanic, very talented when it came to fixing machines, so I went to work on planes,” he explained. “But I noticed that, as a mechanic, my hands were always greasy while the pilots’ were clean, and they had good-looking girls on their arms. Flying looked pretty good to me, but I only had a high school education and the military wanted college.”

With too few cadet flyer applicants in 1942, the army dropped entry requirements. Yeager was a Flight Officer by November 1943, flying P-51 Mustangs out of Britain to shoot down 12 Nazi Luftwaffe planes during WWII.

The NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit XS-1 team members in 1947 (from left): head of operations Joseph Vensel, head of instrumentation Gerald Truszynski, USAF pilot Capt. Charles "Chuck" Yeager, head of the unit Walter Williams, USAF pilot Maj Jack Ridley, and head of engineers De E. Beeler, Head of Engineers.

The Bell Aircraft Corporation X-1 (originally called the “Exprimental Supersonic” XS-1) aeroplane that Chuck Yeager flew to shatter the sound barrier.

He was shot down in his P-51B, named Glamourous Glen after his fiance Glennis Dickhouse, over France in March 1944 on his eighth air mission. With the help of the French underground, he evaded capture and escaped to Spain to eventually rejoin his unit in England. He also helped another airman, who had lost a leg, escape with him. Yeager finished WWII with at least 11 kills and the rank of captain.

War-time flying experiences, when pilots entered nosedives that took their craft close to Mach 1, left aviators and aircraft manufacturers determined to break the speed of sound. The German Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter reached 870km/h, but high speeds popped rivets and buckled the body. In the US, former aviation mechanic Larry Bell, who in 1935 founded Bell Aircraft Corporation to produce US fighter planes, worked with US Army Air Force Research and Development to produce three jet-powered aircraft, the Bell XS-1 (Experimental Supersonic) rocket planes, in December 1945.

USAF General Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier again during a flight in an F-15 jet over Edwards Air Force base on October 14, 1997, during the 50th anniversary re-enactment of his 1947 flight where he flew at the speed of sound.

USAF Brigadier General Chuck Yeager salutes the crowd at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on October 14, 1997, after flying in a F-15D jet fighter plane breaking the sound barrier once again during 50th anniversary of supersonic flight. Picture: AP

General Chuck Yeager was a guest of honour at the Avalon Airshow, Melbourne, in 2007.

After a stint as a flight instructor, Yeager became assistant maintenance officer in the Flight Test Division Fighter Section at Wright Field, Ohio. With the air force intent on achieving supersonic speeds in a Bell XS-1, he was selected for the attempt. Judged the best “instinctive” pilot, with an outstanding capacity to remain calm and focused under stress, he also understood the mechanics and risks of his new aircraft.

Yeager made three glide flights in a Bell XS-1, again named Glamorous Glennis, reaching 0.85 Mach on his first powered flight at Muroc on August 29, 1947. In his next six flights he encountered severe buffeting and sudden nose-up and -down trim changes. On October 10 he reached Mach 0.997 but lost all pitch control.

The XS-1 was designed with a moving horizontal tail. Yeager was advised that changing its angle in small increments would allow better control. This had never been attempted at extremely high speeds but Yeager agreed to try it on the next flight.

On October 13, Yeager and his wife Glennis took a horse race after leaving drinks at Muroc. He fell, breaking two ribs which were strapped up by a local doctor. The next day Glennis drove him to the air base, where a friend gave him a stick to close the cockpit door.

Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.

Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager and Barbara Hershey as Glennis in the 1983 movie The Right Stuff.

The XS-1 was designed for drop launches from a B-29, which at 7930m went into a dive, then pulled up to release the XS-1. The rockets ignited as the XS-1 sped upwards at a 45° angle, when Yeager found the movable tail provided adequate control. Severe buffeting began at Mach .87 but he persevered until a sonic boom echoed over the desert at 13,100m.

He attained a top speed of Mach 1.06 (1126km/h), an achievement kept secret until June 1948. Immortalised in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 bestseller The Right Stuff, Yeager retired from the Air Force in 1975. He now discusses his experiences with fans on Twitter.

Originally published as Pilot Chuck Yeager’s resolve to break the sound barrier was made of the right stuff