Teh One Who Knocks
10-15-2012, 10:57 AM
By Daily Mail Reporter
Legendary aviator Chuck Yeager made history yet again this morning as he broke the sound barrier to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the day he became the first man to do so.
Yeager, 89, took off for altitudes more than 30,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert at t 9:45 a.m. in an F-15D fighter jet piloted by Capt. David Vincent.
It was the same bit of azure desert sky where Yeager first flew faster than the speed of sound on this day in 1947.
http://i.imgur.com/BYPmK.jpg
Vincent piloted the F-15D descending from 45,000 feet to 30,000 feet, at which point he leveled off and cracked the barrier at Mach 1.4.
http://i.imgur.com/MRgSi.jpg
Yeager, who piloted for the rest of the flight, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal there was little on his mind as he took the stick just four months shy of his 90th birthday.
'Flying is flying. You can't add a lot to it,' Yeager said.
http://i.imgur.com/Zahle.png
Vincent was chosen to escort Yeager because of his flight record and rank - as Yeager was also a captain when he made the first supersonic flight.
'This captain is as much of a maverick as General Yeager is. He's in the back seat where the instructor pilot sits because he's the elder statesman,' Yeager's wife Victoria told reporters.
http://i.imgur.com/5aoDS.jpg
Yeager's first flight was in a rocket-powered, Bell X-1, known then as the XS-1 for 'experimental, supersonic.'
The rocket plane was attached to the belly of a B-29 aircraft and Yeager lowered himself in flight from the B-29's bomb bay into the X-1's open hatch.
http://i.imgur.com/TY8ZM.png
In 1964 his ribs had been broken while horseback riding just two days before take-off and his injury forced him to lock the hatch shut using a sawed-off broom handle.
Yeager's exploits were notably featured in Tom Wolf's bestselling 1979 nonfiction book The Right Stuff and he was played by Sam Shepard in the 1983 film adaptation.
Coincidentally, the anniversary was also marked by the arrival of the world's first supersonic skydiver as Felix Baumgartner plummeted to Earth from a record 24.5 miles hitting mach 1.24 on his descent.
Legendary aviator Chuck Yeager made history yet again this morning as he broke the sound barrier to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the day he became the first man to do so.
Yeager, 89, took off for altitudes more than 30,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert at t 9:45 a.m. in an F-15D fighter jet piloted by Capt. David Vincent.
It was the same bit of azure desert sky where Yeager first flew faster than the speed of sound on this day in 1947.
http://i.imgur.com/BYPmK.jpg
Vincent piloted the F-15D descending from 45,000 feet to 30,000 feet, at which point he leveled off and cracked the barrier at Mach 1.4.
http://i.imgur.com/MRgSi.jpg
Yeager, who piloted for the rest of the flight, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal there was little on his mind as he took the stick just four months shy of his 90th birthday.
'Flying is flying. You can't add a lot to it,' Yeager said.
http://i.imgur.com/Zahle.png
Vincent was chosen to escort Yeager because of his flight record and rank - as Yeager was also a captain when he made the first supersonic flight.
'This captain is as much of a maverick as General Yeager is. He's in the back seat where the instructor pilot sits because he's the elder statesman,' Yeager's wife Victoria told reporters.
http://i.imgur.com/5aoDS.jpg
Yeager's first flight was in a rocket-powered, Bell X-1, known then as the XS-1 for 'experimental, supersonic.'
The rocket plane was attached to the belly of a B-29 aircraft and Yeager lowered himself in flight from the B-29's bomb bay into the X-1's open hatch.
http://i.imgur.com/TY8ZM.png
In 1964 his ribs had been broken while horseback riding just two days before take-off and his injury forced him to lock the hatch shut using a sawed-off broom handle.
Yeager's exploits were notably featured in Tom Wolf's bestselling 1979 nonfiction book The Right Stuff and he was played by Sam Shepard in the 1983 film adaptation.
Coincidentally, the anniversary was also marked by the arrival of the world's first supersonic skydiver as Felix Baumgartner plummeted to Earth from a record 24.5 miles hitting mach 1.24 on his descent.