WEBVTT
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For the Best Aerospace Era this is the mansplaining podcast.
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Here is your host Anthony L.
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Sealey
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He sat in the darkness of the cold, cramped cockpit.
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He latched the door to the airplane using a broken broom handle.
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He snapped the oxygen mask to his face as he waited for the countdown.
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Destiny in aerospace was about to call the name of this hillbilly aviator from West Virginia.
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His name was Chuck Yeager.
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Welcome aerospace enthusiasts.
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In this episode, we continue our profile of aerospace legend Chuck Yeager in Hillbilly Aviator Part Two We will talk about that one famous flight he is known for here, but there is much more to Yeager's story.
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We covered part of his life in the episode Hillbilly Aviator Part One, From the hollers of West Virginia to the hostile skies of World War II, to hiding out with the French underground, to the premier air base for airplane testing, and now to the cockpit of the Bell X-1.
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Let's get into this First, how did he end up in the Bell X1 in the first place?
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Well, first let's talk about the sound barrier, an almost mythical force field that many experts at the time thought was impossible to break or exceed.
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There were supersonic research programs in other countries trying to achieve this mythical speed of Mach one and prove it could be reached.
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There were rumors that the Germans had done it with either the jet fighter Me 262 or the rocket plane Me 162 Komet back in the early'40s, But there's no concrete evidence that they actually did.
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Fatal attempts held further evidence that it may not even be possible.
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British pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr., in a DH 108 Swallow, attempted to exceed Mach 1 in 1946 in a dive.
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However, the Swallow broke apart as it approached the mythical mark.
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Unfortunately, de Havilland bought the farm on that flight.
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The aerospace engineers at Bell Corporation, in association with the National Advisory for Aeronautics, The NACA set out to reach this mark without killing its pilot.
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By the way, you have probably heard me mention the NACA before because this is the forerunner bureau that became NASA.
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Now for the program, they had a civilian test pilot named Slick Goodlin But the closer they got to the mark, the more dangerous it became.
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Goodlin did not want to suffer the same fate as de Havilland, at least not for what he was being paid at the time, so he upped his price.
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Larry Bell, the CEO of Bell Aircraft Corporation and the NACA turned to the military to find another test pilot.
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And where do you find your test pilots at?
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Wright Field.
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There, General Albert Boyd explained the goals and the dangers of the program to his test pilots.
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Yeager, along with a few others, volunteered.
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However, he did not think he had a chance to be selected.
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There were more senior test pilots there with engineering degrees from Purdue, Caltech, and Georgia Tech in the room.
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Yeager only had a high school diploma from Hamlin High School in West Virginia.
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One day, General Boyd, known as the Old Man, called Yeager into his office Yeager thought he was about to get chewed out for a prank he pulled on the general.
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Yeager, the constant troublemaker that he was, he put some pebbles in one of the hubcaps of the general's prize car Yeager laughed hysterically when he saw the general get out of his car in the parking lot and look that round with a puzzled face to find out what that noise was.
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Well, it wasn't that.
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Yeager stood at attention for 30 minutes as General Boyd talked about the X-1 program and asked,"Why are you interested?" Yeager was selected in part because General Boyd mistakenly thought Yeager was a bachelor.
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The program was that dangerous, and Boyd did not want to send a married man with kids for this extreme program.
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Yeager's pregnant wife, Glennis, and kid lived about three hours away in Hamlin, West Virginia because the housing in Dayton was so expensive.
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Yeager only visited home on the weekends.
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Gerald Boyd did not realize this until later on after Yeager was selected.
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By the way, this had to be a difficult situation for Glennis, and it was about to get much more difficult Because Yeager's new assignment was about to take him across the country to a base in the Mojave Desert named Muroc in California.
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You may not know that name, but you do know the name it became, Edwards Air Force Base.
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Now let's talk about the Bell X1.
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Yeager got acquainted with the Bell X-1 on a few test flights.
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The Bell X-1 did not take off from the ground as most aircraft do.
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It needed a lift.
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The X-1 was deployed from a mothership at around twenty thousand feet.
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The mothership in this case was a modified B-29 The reason for this is Mach 1 does not have a constant speed at all levels because of the density in the air.
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Air is much thicker at sea level than it is at, let's say, 40,000 feet.
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Yeager performed many test flights to get familiar with the X-1, some using its rocket engines and some unpowered gliding flights.
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For this program, there were two P-80 Shooting Star chase jets for these flights.
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One to monitor Yeager as he was deployed from the B-29, And another further up at a higher altitude, Which gave Yeager a point of reference to aim for.
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Yeager used his exceptional eyesight to spot it from a distance.
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The awesome Bell X-1 can blow by a P-80 jet at Mach.85 like it was standing still.
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On one flight just before being deployed from the B-29, this happened.
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Yeager was going over his checklist in the cockpit when Yeager recounted,"That damn Hoover buzzed me in his P-80.
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He flew by so close that the jet exhaust almost knocked me loose from the B-29.
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Christ, I was rocking and swaying, scared to death" Yeager yelling over the radio,"Hoover, you bastard., If this thing carried guns, I'd shoot your ass out of the sky." Yeager could hear Hoover laughing back over the radio.
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I love stories like this.
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Bob Hoover was personally selected by Yeager for this program.
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The two of them also performed mock dog fights between the P-80 and the X-1 as they glided back down to Rogers Lakebed.
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Now, there were many aerospace engineering problems that needed to be worked out with the Bell X1 before Yeager could push it beyond Mach 1.
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A stability problem that developed past.88 Mach needed to be addressed.
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Aerospace engineer Jack Ridley figured out a solution for that one Also on one flight, the X-1's windows frosted over.
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Yeager tried to scrape away the frost with his fingernails, but that was to no avail.
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He had to rely on his instruments and ironically, instructions from a chase plane pilot named Dick Frost to land safely.
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By the way, to make sure the X-1 cockpit windows never frosted over again in flight, one of the crew would coat the cockpit windows with shampoo.
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Yes, the same kind of shampoo that's in your shower right now.
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Amazing, right?
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Now on the day of his ninth scheduled flight in the program, Yeager came to base in a lot of pain.
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The night before, Yeager took Glennis out on a much needed date night.
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They went horseback riding.
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Sounds romantic, right?
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However, Yeager got thrown off his horse and suffered a bruised shoulder and two broken ribs Only a few involved in the program knew about this.
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Otherwise, he would have been grounded and the program would have been delayed.
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The plan for that day was another incremental short step closer to the mythical Mach 1.
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Basically, they took baby steps up closer to Mach 1 every time they flew.
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In pain, Yeager climbed down the ladder and got into the Bell X1 just as a B-29 reached around 12,000 feet Ridley got the door in place and Yeager used a broken broom handle to latch it tight because with his injuries, he could not do it manually.
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At around 20,000 feet, the B-29 pilot, Bob Cardens, Radioed Yeager and asked,"Are you ready?" Hell yeah, let's get this over with." It happened.
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Yeager activated the Bell X-1's four rocket chambers in succession, powered by liquid oxygen.
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At 42,000 feet, Yeager said,"I turned on the rocket chamber three and immediately reached.96 Mach.
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I noticed the faster I got, the smoother the ride.
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Suddenly, the Mach needle began to fluctuate.
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It went up, then tipped right off the scale.
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I thought I was seeing things." On the ground, the NACA officials tracking the flight suddenly heard this.
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A sonic boom, The first ever recorded.
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Yeager in the Bell X-1 had done it.
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The mythical sound barrier had been officially breached for the first time.
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Although Yeager did not know this because his Mach meter needle spun around cinematically during the flight.
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Data later showed he hit Mach 1.07.
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This was it.
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The date was October 14th, 1947.
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That night, Yeager celebrated, as one would, with drinks.
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Then he took a joy ride on an old beat-up Triumph motorcycle.
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This was not a good idea.
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Yeager crashed on a rural road, but somehow came away with little more scrapes and bruises than he already had.
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Seriously, Yeager got thrown off a horse, broke two ribs, then broke the sound barrier, and then crashed a motorcycle in a span of like 48 hours.
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Who else lives like this?
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During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Yeager flew more than just the Bell X-1.
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He tested many aircraft, including prototypes for the Convair XF-92, the F-86 Sabre, and the F-100 Super Sabre, among many others.
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He also flew some of our newest jet bombers.
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How awesome is this?
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When he wasn't at home with Glennis and the kids, who moved out to the desert to join him, Yeager found time to go hunting and fishing.
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This was a major time in what I call the best aerospace era, though.
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So much had advanced in aerospace engineering in just a few short years.
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Yeager reported that the cockpits, like the ones he flew in on the P-51 Mustang C and D, were made to be simple for people like him who were fresh out of high school.
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The cockpits in these new jets were like something out of a Buck Rogers comic The advantage Yeager had with his exceptional eyesight in World War II Would be neutralized with all this new tech coming in the coming decades.
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At Edwards, there was an intense rivalry between the Navy, Air Force, the NACA, but that was not all.
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There were rivalries between aerospace manufacturers like Douglas, Convair, and Bell, rivalries between fighter pilots and bomber pilots, and also the military test pilots and the civilian pilots.
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Pilots have their egos.
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These rivalries played out in verbal arguments and even fist fights at times at a local watering hole called Pancho's.
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I can only imagine what it would have been like to sit in a dark corner of that bar on a nightly basis and watch it all go down.
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Many pilots with engineering degrees from places like Purdue, Caltech, and Georgia Tech were jealous of the hillbilly aviator who only had a high school diploma.
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Yeager himself did not enjoy the attention he got or meeting politicians or the speeches he was ordered to give after the news was released about his historic flight.
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General Boyd helped to put a stop to those who tried to disgrace Yeager over his lack of education.
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By the way, the Air Force did not publicly confirm the sound barrier had been broken and by who until June of 1948.
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Yeager suspected this was to stay ahead of the Soviets' aerospace development.
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But speaking of civilian pilots, Yeager flat out said that with very few exceptions, the civilian pilots were not near as competent or experienced enough to do the kind of testing that they were performing out at Edwards.
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They pushed aircraft faster and higher than they would ever be in normal operation.
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In car terms, think of the stuff that Clarkson, Hammond, and May did on Top Gear or Grand Tour, stuff that you would never do to your own car.
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Yeager said the civilian pilots were arrogant and would not listen to the more experienced military test pilots.
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This happened once when Yeager volunteered to go along in the backseat of a T33 jet with a civilian pilot to test out a potential lakebed landing site for the NACA.
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Yeager declared that the site was too wet to land on and a plane would just get stuck in the mud upon landing.
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As they approached the lakebed, Yeager said The moment you touch down, we'll be up to our asses in mud.
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The drag will build up so high you won't be able to get off the ground again." The civilian pilot brushed off Yeager and said, No sweat, Chuck.
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I'll just touch and go." Just as a T-33 landing gear touched the ground, it sank down into the mud, just as Yeager said it would The T-33 engines revved up, trying to break free.
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From the backseat, Yeager said,"Why don't you turn the sumbitch off?
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It ain't doing nothing for you.
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The civilian pilot shut off the engine and sat there in defeated silence.
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There was no need to say,"I told you so," here.
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By the way, the name of that civilian test pilot was Neil Armstrong.
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Now there's another aerospace legend I want to mention here, famous not only for being an aviatrix, but also for her abrasive cult of personality, jackie Cochran herself.
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Yeager flew on her wing for a few record-breaking flights here out at Edwards.
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Yeager and Cochran even broke the sound barrier flying in a dive wing to wing in modified F-86 Sabres.
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There is a lot to get to with their lifelong friendship, so I'll leave that for another time I will report though that test pilots always knew if Jackie Cochran had flew that plane earlier in the day because the cockpits would smell like, in their words, a French whorehouse.
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Cochran would spray large amounts of perfume inside the cockpits because she hated the smell of sweat.
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Now, it was not all fun and games out at Edwards in the late 1940s and 1950s.
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Hundreds of pilots lost their lives or bought the farm, as they say, out at Edwards.
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Pilots don't like to say the words plane crash.
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We don't really like to say that in the airlines either.
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The Air Force Base itself was named for a Captain Glenn Edwards, who died in a plane crash flying a Northrop YB-94 flying wing jet bomber.
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This was dangerous work.
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Now let's get to one daunting flight where we almost lost the aerospace legend himself.
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In 1953, an NACA operation succeeded in reaching Mach 2.1 with pilot Scotty Crossfield flying a Douglas Skyrocket The Air Force, Larry Bell, and Yeager did not want them to have this one, Especially on the 50th anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.
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Bell just happened to have an improved rocket plane for the job, The Bell X-1A.
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Yeager was apprehensive about this mission though, because Glennis was pregnant with their fourth child and was having some serious health problems at the time.
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But Glennis told her husband to go for it.
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On December 12th, 1953, the canopy was bolted on the Bell X1A with Yeager inside.
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At around 30,000 feet and from a modified B-50 mothership this time, it happened.
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Yeager reached a much higher elevation than he had planned.
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At 80,000 feet, he said he saw a nighttime sky with flickering stars at 10 in the morning.
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Up there with only a wisp of atmosphere, steering an airplane was like driving on slick ice." The Bell X1A hit 2.1 Mach, then 2.3 Mach, accelerating at 31 miles per hour every second, reaching 1,650 miles per hour, the fastest a man had flown and the fastest an aircraft with straight wings had flown.
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The plan was to reach beyond Mach 2, but Yeager was warned not to hit Mach 2.4 because he would lose control of the aircraft at this speed.
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Yeager did not see this as a problem because he did not think the Bell X-1A would actually reach that speed in the first place.
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Well, the Mach meter hit two point four, and that's when he said to himself,"Too high, too fast, Yeager.
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Christ." The Bell X-1A fell from the sky, rolling and spinning on all three axes.
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Yeager was thrown and thrashed around the cockpit.
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His helmet actually cracked the canopy.
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There was no way to bail out because the canopy was designed to be bolted on.
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"This is my idea of hell! The Bell X-1A fell back to Earth 51,000 feet in 51 seconds, all the way down until around 20,000 feet.
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This is when Yeager somehow got out of the spin and was able to land on a lakebed.
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How many other pilots could have gotten out of this situation?
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Yeager doesn't remember much from this flight or what he said, But those involved said the flight recordings from this flight are haunting.
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Back home, Glennis noticed Yeager's troubled demeanor after this one.
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Now, as I have mentioned before, General Boyd was a major advocate of Yeager because he knew an exceptional pilot when he saw one.
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He often took Yeager along to other locations, even to other countries, to test out new aircraft.
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I've got to tell you this one story.
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On a consult with the French Air Force, General Boyd and Yeager were at the controls in the flight deck of an experimental French bomber when some French officer peeked his head in and offered them two glasses of wine.
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Like,"What are you doing here?
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Oh, here, have some wine while you're test flying this new prototype aircraft.
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Ah, the French.
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Now, does anyone remember this Cold War story from high school or college?
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In September of 1953, a North Korean fighter pilot named No Kum-Sok, while on patrol in his MiG-15, flew south over the 38th parallel and landed at an airbase in South Korea.
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Kum-Sok defected from North Korea to South Korea for a better life and gifted the prized Soviet MiG-15 to the US Air Force to examine for the first time.
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By the way, there's a code name for the MiG-15, but I'm not gonna say that here.
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If you know what it is, you know why.
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Now General Boyd said,"I know the perfect guy to test this thing out." He brought Yeager out all the way in the Pacific this time, all the way to Okinawa.
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Yeager said of flying the MiG-15, it was the most demanding situation I had ever faced.
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It's a quirky airplane that killed a lot of its own pilots" Yeager reported that the MiG-15 did not have a warning alert system before its engine stalled.
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That does not sound safe to me.
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By the way, this MiG-15 was later transferred to the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
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These demanding test flights, among others, pushed Yeager to his limit, and this made him realize that his luck, if there is such a thing, as a test pilot had just about run out.
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Yeager was in his mid-30s here and by now it was time for a career change.
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As awesome of a test pilot as Yeager was, he was a fighter pilot at heart.
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Here's a quote that I like from him,"The pilot with the most experience is gonna whip your ass no matter what you're flying." Yeager was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of a squadron of his own, a squadron of 18 F-86 fighter pilots stationed in West Germany.
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By the way, Glennis and the kids were very happy about this to get out of the desert, and they liked Germany much better.
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My family was actually over there at the same time in the 1950s because my grandfather was stationed over there in the US Army.
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Anyways, this was during those dangerous intimidating moves by squadron of Sabres and MiGs over Eastern and Western Berlin at one of the highest points of the Cold War.
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A pilot under Yeager's command named Emmett Hatch said"Yeager waxed everyone in the squadron easily in mock dog fights." He still had it.
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What better person to learn from though than one of the greatest pilots of all times?
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Also, Hatch was black, and he reported that Yeager did not tolerate any racist treatment of any of his pilots.
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Also, I've got to tell you this story.
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The F-86 Sabre could not start its engine alone.
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It needed an air start.
00:25:51.541 --> 00:25:53.692
If you're in the airlines, you know what I'm talking about there.
00:25:55.318 --> 00:25:57.128
Yeager found a solution to this.
00:25:58.808 --> 00:26:05.858
He decided to place another jet, which could start its engine by itself, 15 feet in front of the nose of the F-86.
00:26:06.919 --> 00:26:11.298
The jet blast would hit the nose of the F-86 and spin and turn the engine over.
00:26:12.739 --> 00:26:17.949
If this is not a hillbilly or what I would call a redneck way of doing things, I don't know what is.
00:26:19.334 --> 00:26:25.903
After Germany, Yeager took command of a squadron of F-100 Super Sabers at a base back in California.
00:26:27.715 --> 00:26:31.135
The F100 Super Sabre is an awesome looking jet, by the way.
00:26:32.868 --> 00:26:41.318
These awesome fighter jets can be deployed anywhere in the world because they can be refueled in the air by a KC-135 Stratotanker.
00:26:42.806 --> 00:26:46.895
Yeager loved leading his squadron in formation on long missions overseas.
00:26:48.266 --> 00:26:49.976
I bet Glennis didn't like this, though.
00:26:51.453 --> 00:26:55.134
By the way, pilots under Yeager's command all wore red scarfs.
00:26:55.864 --> 00:26:56.913
How badass is that?
00:26:57.996 --> 00:27:02.286
How cool would it have been to serve under Yeager's command in one of his squadrons?
00:27:03.582 --> 00:27:10.751
On one mission though over in Italy, he and members of his squadron attended a party, and it got out of hand.
00:27:12.231 --> 00:27:13.961
You know, one of those kind of parties.
00:27:15.481 --> 00:27:21.092
Yeager promised to pay for the damages to the club, but one of his superiors was not having it.
00:27:22.321 --> 00:27:24.751
Yeager was facing a potential court martial here.
00:27:26.162 --> 00:27:27.811
This would have derailed his career.
00:27:28.636 --> 00:27:33.586
However, another general recalled and reassigned Yeager before the court martial could have happened.
00:27:35.376 --> 00:27:36.727
This saved his career.
00:27:36.987 --> 00:27:52.718
However, this ended his time commanding a fighter squadron Yeager was appointed to the War College in Montgomery, Alabama for a time Before being promoted to full colonel and assigned as commandant of the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School back at Edwards.
00:27:54.286 --> 00:27:59.336
The Air Force had plans for space stations ever since it was first created back in 1947.
00:28:00.395 --> 00:28:02.645
They needed to train airmen for space.
00:28:04.046 --> 00:28:08.375
Some familiar names like Tom Stafford, among others, were on their staff here.
00:28:10.296 --> 00:28:13.976
Many astronauts and X-15 pilots came out of this school.
00:28:15.122 --> 00:28:22.662
By the way, during this time, Yeager flew a modified rocket-powered Lockheed Starfighter up to 104,000 feet.
00:28:23.291 --> 00:28:27.011
However, it began to spin violently down from the edge of space.
00:28:28.301 --> 00:28:30.632
This is not the first time this has happened to him, is it?
00:28:32.291 --> 00:28:36.182
Yeager was forced to bail out and suffered severe burns as a result.
00:28:37.011 --> 00:28:39.342
I'll spare you any more further gruesome details here.
00:28:40.672 --> 00:28:43.001
This was the closest Yeager ever got to space.
00:28:44.231 --> 00:28:51.942
Had he been chosen to be part of the Mercury Seven, I will guarantee he would have named his Mercury capsule Glamorous Glennis Seven.
00:28:53.981 --> 00:29:05.571
Now, after his time back at Edwards, Yeager became wing commander over five squadrons, including five thousand airmen under his command in the Vietnam War in nineteen sixty-six.
00:29:06.983 --> 00:29:10.413
Not bad for a troublesome kid from the hollers of West Virginia.
00:29:11.773 --> 00:29:22.409
The last flight Yeager flew in the Air Force was in a F-4C Phantom II when he landed back at Edwards This was in February 1975.
00:29:23.848 --> 00:29:26.009
That's the last year of the best aerospace era.
00:30:04.027 --> 00:30:10.132
As we are getting towards the end of Yeager's story here as far as the Best Aerospace Era is concerned, i'll leave it here.
00:30:11.442 --> 00:30:18.882
Yeager lived a long and amazing life, A much longer life than most of his contemporaries of fighter pilots and test pilots.
00:30:20.442 --> 00:30:26.211
I encourage everyone to read his biography because it is both fascinating and at times hilarious.
00:30:27.108 --> 00:30:30.028
Also, check out the website chuckyeager.com.
00:30:31.808 --> 00:30:39.259
The aerospace legend Chuck Yeager died on December 7th, 2020 at the age of ninety-seven.
00:30:41.688 --> 00:30:43.188
Thank you so much for listening.
00:30:43.508 --> 00:30:45.807
There's always a light at the end of the runway.
00:30:48.031 --> 00:30:51.942
Follow the mansplaining podcast for more stories from the Best Aerospace Era.
00:30:52.582 --> 00:30:56.451
Or go to Best Aerospace Era.com or find us on social media.
00:00:00.947 --> 00:00:04.538
For the Best Aerospace Era this is the mansplaining podcast.
00:00:04.758 --> 00:00:06.298
Here is your host Anthony L.
00:00:06.298 --> 00:00:06.748
Sealey
00:00:11.643 --> 00:00:14.872
He sat in the darkness of the cold, cramped cockpit.
00:00:15.813 --> 00:00:19.292
He latched the door to the airplane using a broken broom handle.
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He snapped the oxygen mask to his face as he waited for the countdown.
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Destiny in aerospace was about to call the name of this hillbilly aviator from West Virginia.
00:00:32.155 --> 00:00:34.095
His name was Chuck Yeager.
00:01:09.649 --> 00:01:11.299
Welcome aerospace enthusiasts.
00:01:11.938 --> 00:01:25.382
In this episode, we continue our profile of aerospace legend Chuck Yeager in Hillbilly Aviator Part Two We will talk about that one famous flight he is known for here, but there is much more to Yeager's story.
00:01:26.617 --> 00:01:43.998
We covered part of his life in the episode Hillbilly Aviator Part One, From the hollers of West Virginia to the hostile skies of World War II, to hiding out with the French underground, to the premier air base for airplane testing, and now to the cockpit of the Bell X-1.
00:01:44.948 --> 00:01:51.099
Let's get into this First, how did he end up in the Bell X1 in the first place?
00:01:52.638 --> 00:02:01.379
Well, first let's talk about the sound barrier, an almost mythical force field that many experts at the time thought was impossible to break or exceed.
00:02:02.953 --> 00:02:10.492
There were supersonic research programs in other countries trying to achieve this mythical speed of Mach one and prove it could be reached.
00:02:11.853 --> 00:02:24.703
There were rumors that the Germans had done it with either the jet fighter Me 262 or the rocket plane Me 162 Komet back in the early'40s, But there's no concrete evidence that they actually did.
00:02:26.397 --> 00:02:30.008
Fatal attempts held further evidence that it may not even be possible.
00:02:31.548 --> 00:02:40.348
British pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr., in a DH 108 Swallow, attempted to exceed Mach 1 in 1946 in a dive.
00:02:40.989 --> 00:02:44.389
However, the Swallow broke apart as it approached the mythical mark.
00:02:46.329 --> 00:02:48.848
Unfortunately, de Havilland bought the farm on that flight.
00:02:51.098 --> 00:03:00.799
The aerospace engineers at Bell Corporation, in association with the National Advisory for Aeronautics, The NACA set out to reach this mark without killing its pilot.
00:03:02.612 --> 00:03:09.443
By the way, you have probably heard me mention the NACA before because this is the forerunner bureau that became NASA.
00:03:11.376 --> 00:03:18.759
Now for the program, they had a civilian test pilot named Slick Goodlin But the closer they got to the mark, the more dangerous it became.
00:03:19.689 --> 00:03:27.120
Goodlin did not want to suffer the same fate as de Havilland, at least not for what he was being paid at the time, so he upped his price.
00:03:28.674 --> 00:03:36.093
Larry Bell, the CEO of Bell Aircraft Corporation and the NACA turned to the military to find another test pilot.
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And where do you find your test pilots at?
00:03:39.844 --> 00:03:40.724
Wright Field.
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There, General Albert Boyd explained the goals and the dangers of the program to his test pilots.
00:03:48.438 --> 00:03:50.829
Yeager, along with a few others, volunteered.
00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:54.239
However, he did not think he had a chance to be selected.
00:03:55.609 --> 00:04:01.748
There were more senior test pilots there with engineering degrees from Purdue, Caltech, and Georgia Tech in the room.
00:04:03.008 --> 00:04:06.938
Yeager only had a high school diploma from Hamlin High School in West Virginia.
00:04:08.735 --> 00:04:18.666
One day, General Boyd, known as the Old Man, called Yeager into his office Yeager thought he was about to get chewed out for a prank he pulled on the general.
00:04:19.786 --> 00:04:35.851
Yeager, the constant troublemaker that he was, he put some pebbles in one of the hubcaps of the general's prize car Yeager laughed hysterically when he saw the general get out of his car in the parking lot and look that round with a puzzled face to find out what that noise was.
00:04:36.963 --> 00:04:38.584
Well, it wasn't that.
00:04:40.413 --> 00:04:55.237
Yeager stood at attention for 30 minutes as General Boyd talked about the X-1 program and asked,"Why are you interested?" Yeager was selected in part because General Boyd mistakenly thought Yeager was a bachelor.
00:04:56.237 --> 00:05:02.896
The program was that dangerous, and Boyd did not want to send a married man with kids for this extreme program.
00:05:04.382 --> 00:05:11.892
Yeager's pregnant wife, Glennis, and kid lived about three hours away in Hamlin, West Virginia because the housing in Dayton was so expensive.
00:05:12.913 --> 00:05:15.023
Yeager only visited home on the weekends.
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Gerald Boyd did not realize this until later on after Yeager was selected.
00:05:22.351 --> 00:05:35.262
By the way, this had to be a difficult situation for Glennis, and it was about to get much more difficult Because Yeager's new assignment was about to take him across the country to a base in the Mojave Desert named Muroc in California.
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You may not know that name, but you do know the name it became, Edwards Air Force Base.
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Now let's talk about the Bell X1.
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Yeager got acquainted with the Bell X-1 on a few test flights.
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The Bell X-1 did not take off from the ground as most aircraft do.
00:05:55.627 --> 00:05:56.656
It needed a lift.
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The X-1 was deployed from a mothership at around twenty thousand feet.
00:06:03.269 --> 00:06:14.961
The mothership in this case was a modified B-29 The reason for this is Mach 1 does not have a constant speed at all levels because of the density in the air.
00:06:16.411 --> 00:06:20.422
Air is much thicker at sea level than it is at, let's say, 40,000 feet.
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Yeager performed many test flights to get familiar with the X-1, some using its rocket engines and some unpowered gliding flights.
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For this program, there were two P-80 Shooting Star chase jets for these flights.
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One to monitor Yeager as he was deployed from the B-29, And another further up at a higher altitude, Which gave Yeager a point of reference to aim for.
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Yeager used his exceptional eyesight to spot it from a distance.
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The awesome Bell X-1 can blow by a P-80 jet at Mach.85 like it was standing still.
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On one flight just before being deployed from the B-29, this happened.
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Yeager was going over his checklist in the cockpit when Yeager recounted,"That damn Hoover buzzed me in his P-80.
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He flew by so close that the jet exhaust almost knocked me loose from the B-29.
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Christ, I was rocking and swaying, scared to death" Yeager yelling over the radio,"Hoover, you bastard., If this thing carried guns, I'd shoot your ass out of the sky." Yeager could hear Hoover laughing back over the radio.
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I love stories like this.
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Bob Hoover was personally selected by Yeager for this program.
00:07:42.964 --> 00:07:49.615
The two of them also performed mock dog fights between the P-80 and the X-1 as they glided back down to Rogers Lakebed.
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Now, there were many aerospace engineering problems that needed to be worked out with the Bell X1 before Yeager could push it beyond Mach 1.
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A stability problem that developed past.88 Mach needed to be addressed.
00:08:05.098 --> 00:08:14.975
Aerospace engineer Jack Ridley figured out a solution for that one Also on one flight, the X-1's windows frosted over.
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Yeager tried to scrape away the frost with his fingernails, but that was to no avail.
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He had to rely on his instruments and ironically, instructions from a chase plane pilot named Dick Frost to land safely.
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By the way, to make sure the X-1 cockpit windows never frosted over again in flight, one of the crew would coat the cockpit windows with shampoo.
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Yes, the same kind of shampoo that's in your shower right now.
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Amazing, right?
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Now on the day of his ninth scheduled flight in the program, Yeager came to base in a lot of pain.
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The night before, Yeager took Glennis out on a much needed date night.
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They went horseback riding.
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Sounds romantic, right?
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However, Yeager got thrown off his horse and suffered a bruised shoulder and two broken ribs Only a few involved in the program knew about this.
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Otherwise, he would have been grounded and the program would have been delayed.
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The plan for that day was another incremental short step closer to the mythical Mach 1.
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Basically, they took baby steps up closer to Mach 1 every time they flew.
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In pain, Yeager climbed down the ladder and got into the Bell X1 just as a B-29 reached around 12,000 feet Ridley got the door in place and Yeager used a broken broom handle to latch it tight because with his injuries, he could not do it manually.
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At around 20,000 feet, the B-29 pilot, Bob Cardens, Radioed Yeager and asked,"Are you ready?" Hell yeah, let's get this over with." It happened.
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Yeager activated the Bell X-1's four rocket chambers in succession, powered by liquid oxygen.
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At 42,000 feet, Yeager said,"I turned on the rocket chamber three and immediately reached.96 Mach.
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I noticed the faster I got, the smoother the ride.
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Suddenly, the Mach needle began to fluctuate.
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It went up, then tipped right off the scale.
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I thought I was seeing things." On the ground, the NACA officials tracking the flight suddenly heard this.
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A sonic boom, The first ever recorded.
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Yeager in the Bell X-1 had done it.
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The mythical sound barrier had been officially breached for the first time.
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Although Yeager did not know this because his Mach meter needle spun around cinematically during the flight.
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Data later showed he hit Mach 1.07.
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This was it.
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The date was October 14th, 1947.
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That night, Yeager celebrated, as one would, with drinks.
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Then he took a joy ride on an old beat-up Triumph motorcycle.
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This was not a good idea.
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Yeager crashed on a rural road, but somehow came away with little more scrapes and bruises than he already had.
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Seriously, Yeager got thrown off a horse, broke two ribs, then broke the sound barrier, and then crashed a motorcycle in a span of like 48 hours.
00:12:20.965 --> 00:12:21.924
Who else lives like this?
00:12:23.274 --> 00:12:29.034
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Yeager flew more than just the Bell X-1.
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He tested many aircraft, including prototypes for the Convair XF-92, the F-86 Sabre, and the F-100 Super Sabre, among many others.
00:12:41.024 --> 00:12:43.365
He also flew some of our newest jet bombers.
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How awesome is this?
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When he wasn't at home with Glennis and the kids, who moved out to the desert to join him, Yeager found time to go hunting and fishing.
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This was a major time in what I call the best aerospace era, though.
00:12:59.821 --> 00:13:03.801
So much had advanced in aerospace engineering in just a few short years.
00:13:05.344 --> 00:13:15.374
Yeager reported that the cockpits, like the ones he flew in on the P-51 Mustang C and D, were made to be simple for people like him who were fresh out of high school.
00:13:16.636 --> 00:13:29.307
The cockpits in these new jets were like something out of a Buck Rogers comic The advantage Yeager had with his exceptional eyesight in World War II Would be neutralized with all this new tech coming in the coming decades.
00:13:30.809 --> 00:13:37.580
At Edwards, there was an intense rivalry between the Navy, Air Force, the NACA, but that was not all.
00:13:38.570 --> 00:13:51.820
There were rivalries between aerospace manufacturers like Douglas, Convair, and Bell, rivalries between fighter pilots and bomber pilots, and also the military test pilots and the civilian pilots.
00:13:53.177 --> 00:13:54.567
Pilots have their egos.
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These rivalries played out in verbal arguments and even fist fights at times at a local watering hole called Pancho's.
00:14:03.947 --> 00:14:10.268
I can only imagine what it would have been like to sit in a dark corner of that bar on a nightly basis and watch it all go down.
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Many pilots with engineering degrees from places like Purdue, Caltech, and Georgia Tech were jealous of the hillbilly aviator who only had a high school diploma.
00:14:21.542 --> 00:14:30.261
Yeager himself did not enjoy the attention he got or meeting politicians or the speeches he was ordered to give after the news was released about his historic flight.
00:14:31.119 --> 00:14:35.788
General Boyd helped to put a stop to those who tried to disgrace Yeager over his lack of education.
00:14:37.028 --> 00:14:44.208
By the way, the Air Force did not publicly confirm the sound barrier had been broken and by who until June of 1948.
00:14:45.714 --> 00:14:49.323
Yeager suspected this was to stay ahead of the Soviets' aerospace development.
00:14:50.243 --> 00:15:02.072
But speaking of civilian pilots, Yeager flat out said that with very few exceptions, the civilian pilots were not near as competent or experienced enough to do the kind of testing that they were performing out at Edwards.
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They pushed aircraft faster and higher than they would ever be in normal operation.
00:15:08.870 --> 00:15:15.931
In car terms, think of the stuff that Clarkson, Hammond, and May did on Top Gear or Grand Tour, stuff that you would never do to your own car.
00:15:17.373 --> 00:15:23.123
Yeager said the civilian pilots were arrogant and would not listen to the more experienced military test pilots.
00:15:24.773 --> 00:15:35.019
This happened once when Yeager volunteered to go along in the backseat of a T33 jet with a civilian pilot to test out a potential lakebed landing site for the NACA.
00:15:36.442 --> 00:15:41.642
Yeager declared that the site was too wet to land on and a plane would just get stuck in the mud upon landing.
00:15:42.761 --> 00:15:48.682
As they approached the lakebed, Yeager said The moment you touch down, we'll be up to our asses in mud.
00:15:49.211 --> 00:15:57.741
The drag will build up so high you won't be able to get off the ground again." The civilian pilot brushed off Yeager and said, No sweat, Chuck.
00:15:58.432 --> 00:16:10.123
I'll just touch and go." Just as a T-33 landing gear touched the ground, it sank down into the mud, just as Yeager said it would The T-33 engines revved up, trying to break free.
00:16:11.349 --> 00:16:15.219
From the backseat, Yeager said,"Why don't you turn the sumbitch off?
00:16:15.528 --> 00:16:16.708
It ain't doing nothing for you.
00:16:18.900 --> 00:16:22.961
The civilian pilot shut off the engine and sat there in defeated silence.
00:16:23.961 --> 00:16:26.171
There was no need to say,"I told you so," here.
00:16:27.900 --> 00:16:31.610
By the way, the name of that civilian test pilot was Neil Armstrong.
00:16:33.048 --> 00:16:43.597
Now there's another aerospace legend I want to mention here, famous not only for being an aviatrix, but also for her abrasive cult of personality, jackie Cochran herself.
00:16:44.638 --> 00:16:48.658
Yeager flew on her wing for a few record-breaking flights here out at Edwards.
00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:57.089
Yeager and Cochran even broke the sound barrier flying in a dive wing to wing in modified F-86 Sabres.
00:16:58.259 --> 00:17:12.797
There is a lot to get to with their lifelong friendship, so I'll leave that for another time I will report though that test pilots always knew if Jackie Cochran had flew that plane earlier in the day because the cockpits would smell like, in their words, a French whorehouse.
00:17:13.926 --> 00:17:18.826
Cochran would spray large amounts of perfume inside the cockpits because she hated the smell of sweat.
00:17:20.395 --> 00:17:25.016
Now, it was not all fun and games out at Edwards in the late 1940s and 1950s.
00:17:26.375 --> 00:17:31.326
Hundreds of pilots lost their lives or bought the farm, as they say, out at Edwards.
00:17:32.385 --> 00:17:34.695
Pilots don't like to say the words plane crash.
00:17:35.833 --> 00:17:37.712
We don't really like to say that in the airlines either.
00:17:38.733 --> 00:17:47.814
The Air Force Base itself was named for a Captain Glenn Edwards, who died in a plane crash flying a Northrop YB-94 flying wing jet bomber.
00:17:49.199 --> 00:17:50.439
This was dangerous work.
00:17:51.898 --> 00:17:55.999
Now let's get to one daunting flight where we almost lost the aerospace legend himself.
00:18:33.358 --> 00:18:53.395
In 1953, an NACA operation succeeded in reaching Mach 2.1 with pilot Scotty Crossfield flying a Douglas Skyrocket The Air Force, Larry Bell, and Yeager did not want them to have this one, Especially on the 50th anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.
00:18:54.498 --> 00:19:00.127
Bell just happened to have an improved rocket plane for the job, The Bell X-1A.
00:19:01.705 --> 00:19:09.506
Yeager was apprehensive about this mission though, because Glennis was pregnant with their fourth child and was having some serious health problems at the time.
00:19:10.776 --> 00:19:13.135
But Glennis told her husband to go for it.
00:19:14.339 --> 00:19:21.819
On December 12th, 1953, the canopy was bolted on the Bell X1A with Yeager inside.
00:19:23.031 --> 00:19:28.862
At around 30,000 feet and from a modified B-50 mothership this time, it happened.
00:19:33.790 --> 00:19:36.641
Yeager reached a much higher elevation than he had planned.
00:19:37.560 --> 00:19:44.661
At 80,000 feet, he said he saw a nighttime sky with flickering stars at 10 in the morning.
00:19:45.441 --> 00:20:08.671
Up there with only a wisp of atmosphere, steering an airplane was like driving on slick ice." The Bell X1A hit 2.1 Mach, then 2.3 Mach, accelerating at 31 miles per hour every second, reaching 1,650 miles per hour, the fastest a man had flown and the fastest an aircraft with straight wings had flown.
00:20:09.954 --> 00:20:18.255
The plan was to reach beyond Mach 2, but Yeager was warned not to hit Mach 2.4 because he would lose control of the aircraft at this speed.
00:20:19.532 --> 00:20:25.712
Yeager did not see this as a problem because he did not think the Bell X-1A would actually reach that speed in the first place.
00:20:26.873 --> 00:20:34.501
Well, the Mach meter hit two point four, and that's when he said to himself,"Too high, too fast, Yeager.
00:20:34.571 --> 00:20:41.491
Christ." The Bell X-1A fell from the sky, rolling and spinning on all three axes.
00:20:42.791 --> 00:20:45.172
Yeager was thrown and thrashed around the cockpit.
00:20:45.771 --> 00:20:47.922
His helmet actually cracked the canopy.
00:20:49.098 --> 00:20:53.179
There was no way to bail out because the canopy was designed to be bolted on.
00:20:54.509 --> 00:21:06.730
"This is my idea of hell! The Bell X-1A fell back to Earth 51,000 feet in 51 seconds, all the way down until around 20,000 feet.
00:21:08.101 --> 00:21:12.490
This is when Yeager somehow got out of the spin and was able to land on a lakebed.
00:21:13.911 --> 00:21:16.810
How many other pilots could have gotten out of this situation?
00:21:18.490 --> 00:21:25.357
Yeager doesn't remember much from this flight or what he said, But those involved said the flight recordings from this flight are haunting.
00:21:26.978 --> 00:21:30.137
Back home, Glennis noticed Yeager's troubled demeanor after this one.
00:21:31.912 --> 00:21:38.922
Now, as I have mentioned before, General Boyd was a major advocate of Yeager because he knew an exceptional pilot when he saw one.
00:21:40.001 --> 00:21:45.521
He often took Yeager along to other locations, even to other countries, to test out new aircraft.
00:21:46.593 --> 00:21:48.222
I've got to tell you this one story.
00:21:49.065 --> 00:22:02.105
On a consult with the French Air Force, General Boyd and Yeager were at the controls in the flight deck of an experimental French bomber when some French officer peeked his head in and offered them two glasses of wine.
00:22:03.484 --> 00:22:04.845
Like,"What are you doing here?
00:22:05.444 --> 00:22:08.924
Oh, here, have some wine while you're test flying this new prototype aircraft.
00:22:09.974 --> 00:22:10.914
Ah, the French.
00:22:12.270 --> 00:22:16.151
Now, does anyone remember this Cold War story from high school or college?
00:22:17.623 --> 00:22:31.092
In September of 1953, a North Korean fighter pilot named No Kum-Sok, while on patrol in his MiG-15, flew south over the 38th parallel and landed at an airbase in South Korea.
00:22:32.761 --> 00:22:43.061
Kum-Sok defected from North Korea to South Korea for a better life and gifted the prized Soviet MiG-15 to the US Air Force to examine for the first time.
00:22:44.048 --> 00:22:49.019
By the way, there's a code name for the MiG-15, but I'm not gonna say that here.
00:22:49.489 --> 00:22:51.429
If you know what it is, you know why.
00:22:52.979 --> 00:23:02.868
Now General Boyd said,"I know the perfect guy to test this thing out." He brought Yeager out all the way in the Pacific this time, all the way to Okinawa.
00:23:04.429 --> 00:23:10.209
Yeager said of flying the MiG-15, it was the most demanding situation I had ever faced.
00:23:10.848 --> 00:23:21.148
It's a quirky airplane that killed a lot of its own pilots" Yeager reported that the MiG-15 did not have a warning alert system before its engine stalled.
00:23:22.249 --> 00:23:23.888
That does not sound safe to me.
00:23:25.358 --> 00:23:30.878
By the way, this MiG-15 was later transferred to the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
00:23:32.615 --> 00:23:44.065
These demanding test flights, among others, pushed Yeager to his limit, and this made him realize that his luck, if there is such a thing, as a test pilot had just about run out.
00:23:45.164 --> 00:23:49.654
Yeager was in his mid-30s here and by now it was time for a career change.
00:24:27.107 --> 00:24:31.448
As awesome of a test pilot as Yeager was, he was a fighter pilot at heart.
00:24:32.288 --> 00:24:51.017
Here's a quote that I like from him,"The pilot with the most experience is gonna whip your ass no matter what you're flying." Yeager was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of a squadron of his own, a squadron of 18 F-86 fighter pilots stationed in West Germany.
00:24:52.406 --> 00:24:58.317
By the way, Glennis and the kids were very happy about this to get out of the desert, and they liked Germany much better.
00:24:59.886 --> 00:25:07.047
My family was actually over there at the same time in the 1950s because my grandfather was stationed over there in the US Army.
00:25:07.916 --> 00:25:17.406
Anyways, this was during those dangerous intimidating moves by squadron of Sabres and MiGs over Eastern and Western Berlin at one of the highest points of the Cold War.
00:25:19.098 --> 00:25:28.749
A pilot under Yeager's command named Emmett Hatch said"Yeager waxed everyone in the squadron easily in mock dog fights." He still had it.
00:25:29.969 --> 00:25:34.174
What better person to learn from though than one of the greatest pilots of all times?
00:25:36.115 --> 00:25:42.154
Also, Hatch was black, and he reported that Yeager did not tolerate any racist treatment of any of his pilots.
00:25:43.471 --> 00:25:45.182
Also, I've got to tell you this story.
00:25:45.692 --> 00:25:48.751
The F-86 Sabre could not start its engine alone.
00:25:49.051 --> 00:25:50.231
It needed an air start.
00:25:51.541 --> 00:25:53.692
If you're in the airlines, you know what I'm talking about there.
00:25:55.318 --> 00:25:57.128
Yeager found a solution to this.
00:25:58.808 --> 00:26:05.858
He decided to place another jet, which could start its engine by itself, 15 feet in front of the nose of the F-86.
00:26:06.919 --> 00:26:11.298
The jet blast would hit the nose of the F-86 and spin and turn the engine over.
00:26:12.739 --> 00:26:17.949
If this is not a hillbilly or what I would call a redneck way of doing things, I don't know what is.
00:26:19.334 --> 00:26:25.903
After Germany, Yeager took command of a squadron of F-100 Super Sabers at a base back in California.
00:26:27.715 --> 00:26:31.135
The F100 Super Sabre is an awesome looking jet, by the way.
00:26:32.868 --> 00:26:41.318
These awesome fighter jets can be deployed anywhere in the world because they can be refueled in the air by a KC-135 Stratotanker.
00:26:42.806 --> 00:26:46.895
Yeager loved leading his squadron in formation on long missions overseas.
00:26:48.266 --> 00:26:49.976
I bet Glennis didn't like this, though.
00:26:51.453 --> 00:26:55.134
By the way, pilots under Yeager's command all wore red scarfs.
00:26:55.864 --> 00:26:56.913
How badass is that?
00:26:57.996 --> 00:27:02.286
How cool would it have been to serve under Yeager's command in one of his squadrons?
00:27:03.582 --> 00:27:10.751
On one mission though over in Italy, he and members of his squadron attended a party, and it got out of hand.
00:27:12.231 --> 00:27:13.961
You know, one of those kind of parties.
00:27:15.481 --> 00:27:21.092
Yeager promised to pay for the damages to the club, but one of his superiors was not having it.
00:27:22.321 --> 00:27:24.751
Yeager was facing a potential court martial here.
00:27:26.162 --> 00:27:27.811
This would have derailed his career.
00:27:28.636 --> 00:27:33.586
However, another general recalled and reassigned Yeager before the court martial could have happened.
00:27:35.376 --> 00:27:36.727
This saved his career.
00:27:36.987 --> 00:27:52.718
However, this ended his time commanding a fighter squadron Yeager was appointed to the War College in Montgomery, Alabama for a time Before being promoted to full colonel and assigned as commandant of the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School back at Edwards.
00:27:54.286 --> 00:27:59.336
The Air Force had plans for space stations ever since it was first created back in 1947.
00:28:00.395 --> 00:28:02.645
They needed to train airmen for space.
00:28:04.046 --> 00:28:08.375
Some familiar names like Tom Stafford, among others, were on their staff here.
00:28:10.296 --> 00:28:13.976
Many astronauts and X-15 pilots came out of this school.
00:28:15.122 --> 00:28:22.662
By the way, during this time, Yeager flew a modified rocket-powered Lockheed Starfighter up to 104,000 feet.
00:28:23.291 --> 00:28:27.011
However, it began to spin violently down from the edge of space.
00:28:28.301 --> 00:28:30.632
This is not the first time this has happened to him, is it?
00:28:32.291 --> 00:28:36.182
Yeager was forced to bail out and suffered severe burns as a result.
00:28:37.011 --> 00:28:39.342
I'll spare you any more further gruesome details here.
00:28:40.672 --> 00:28:43.001
This was the closest Yeager ever got to space.
00:28:44.231 --> 00:28:51.942
Had he been chosen to be part of the Mercury Seven, I will guarantee he would have named his Mercury capsule Glamorous Glennis Seven.
00:28:53.981 --> 00:29:05.571
Now, after his time back at Edwards, Yeager became wing commander over five squadrons, including five thousand airmen under his command in the Vietnam War in nineteen sixty-six.
00:29:06.983 --> 00:29:10.413
Not bad for a troublesome kid from the hollers of West Virginia.
00:29:11.773 --> 00:29:22.409
The last flight Yeager flew in the Air Force was in a F-4C Phantom II when he landed back at Edwards This was in February 1975.
00:29:23.848 --> 00:29:26.009
That's the last year of the best aerospace era.
00:30:04.027 --> 00:30:10.132
As we are getting towards the end of Yeager's story here as far as the Best Aerospace Era is concerned, i'll leave it here.
00:30:11.442 --> 00:30:18.882
Yeager lived a long and amazing life, A much longer life than most of his contemporaries of fighter pilots and test pilots.
00:30:20.442 --> 00:30:26.211
I encourage everyone to read his biography because it is both fascinating and at times hilarious.
00:30:27.108 --> 00:30:30.028
Also, check out the website chuckyeager.com.
00:30:31.808 --> 00:30:39.259
The aerospace legend Chuck Yeager died on December 7th, 2020 at the age of ninety-seven.
00:30:41.688 --> 00:30:43.188
Thank you so much for listening.
00:30:43.508 --> 00:30:45.807
There's always a light at the end of the runway.
00:30:48.031 --> 00:30:51.942
Follow the mansplaining podcast for more stories from the Best Aerospace Era.
00:30:52.582 --> 00:30:56.451
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