Chuck Yeager thread (Updated)

Local aviation themed boozer had two small placards glued to the bar. One read “This seat reserved for Gen Chuck Yeager” & the other was for Bud Anderson.
Yeager was in there one night & told the bar owner that he should pay him to use his name like that. The guy promptly chiseled the placard off the bar, threw him out of the place & banned Yeager for life.

One of his claims was how he could see enemy aircraft from ten miles away

In his autobiog, he actually says 40 miles away. Which is when I put the book down.

Oh, and this: http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/stories/stories_16.html

This is enlightening (apologies if it has been linked to before):

It starts here, with the politics around the NF104 / Aerospace Trainer ‘spaceplane’ program: http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/stories/stories_09.html

and the goes on to discuss how Yeager wrote off one of these 3 very expensive aeroplanes though pilot error: http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/stories/stories_13.html

Though that is not how Yeager tells it in his semi-autobiography!

I listened to a talk by Chuck once, it was a small informal doo with mostly pilots. Chuck gave a talk of about 40 minutes covering his early days flying in England and hunting pigs in Germany post war. One of his claims was how he could see enemy aircraft from ten miles away while other pilots couldn’t. He talked about his flying through his career to the test flying. He was more than dismissive of the English and gave them and German engineers no credit with the early jet/rocket development and fast aircraft design.
Most who heard him speak thought differently of him when they left to when they arrived.

I was lucky enough to meet Jim Lovell last year (Apollo 13 Flight Commander ) and he was a fascinating and generous fellow to spend a couple of hours with.

Oddly enough, he, the real hero could walk down Piccadilly unrecognised whilst Tom Hanks ( screen portrayal ) would be mobbed !

With anyone very famous, I think there is a public persona/story which they present, and it is very hard to get underneath that, and maybe it is intrusive to even try.

i USED TO CHAT REGULARLY WITH S/L GINGER LACEY AT GRINDALE MOST OF THE PEOPLE HE FLEW AT THE PARACHUTE SCOOL THERE DID NOT KNOW THAT HE WAS A W.W. 2 FIGHTER ACE , HE CHATTED TO ME SOMETIMES ABOUT SMOKING PIPES SOMETIMES ABOUT FLYING BUT A MORE MODEST UNNASUMING MAN YOU COULD NOT WISH TO MEET , WHEN FLYING WAS OVER HE WOULD DRIVE OFF IN HIS LITTLE THREE WHEELER CAR TO HIS WIFE AND HIS COTTAGE AT FLAMBOROUGH PUFFING AWAY ON HIS PIPE , I TREASURE MY MEMORIES OF HIM A GENTLEMAN TO THE LAST .
BRIAN C D (WAKEFIELD)

I think you need to turn your hearing aid down a tad. 🙂

i USED TO CHAT REGULARLY WITH S/L GINGER LACEY AT GRINDALE MOST OF THE PEOPLE HE FLEW AT THE PARACHUTE SCOOL THERE DID NOT KNOW THAT HE WAS A W.W. 2 FIGHTER ACE , HE CHATTED TO ME SOMETIMES ABOUT SMOKING PIPES SOMETIMES ABOUT FLYING BUT A MORE MODEST UNNASUMING MAN YOU COULD NOT WISH TO MEET , WHEN FLYING WAS OVER HE WOULD DRIVE OFF IN HIS LITTLE THREE WHEELER CAR TO HIS WIFE AND HIS COTTAGE AT FLAMBOROUGH PUFFING AWAY ON HIS PIPE , I TREASURE MY MEMORIES OF HIM A GENTLEMAN TO THE LAST .
BRIAN C D (WAKEFIELD)

Yes Pete a petulent man who refused to shake hands with Roland Beamont because his government allowed the british pilot to fly the F86 Sabre aircraft before he did, and yes although flying from this country during the war he did not like the Brits .
A courageous man but not quite the heroic figure he likes to be depicted as ,and W/C Ken Wallis told me that he flew nearly every day but he had stopped doing airshows as he was 89 years of age Brian c d

I caught that comment too – I think Aldrin’s expression probably added to his (low?) opinion of Yeager…

Star Gazing BBC 2, last night, Buzz Aldrin was asked who made the best astronauts, Navy or Air Force pilots? Buzz, being ex Air Force, opted for ex Air Force pilots. As a throw away remark said, “there is only room for one Chuck Yeager in the Air Force!” LOL.

Very Good analysis there Bob !!!

I blame (un)social media – if he didn’t have the “medium” of Twatter and Feckbook etc to post his dislike of ____________ (insert subject) then he wouldn’t get the web whoring trolls who subscribe to his thinking adding support to his views….

To quote Robert Wilensky, “We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.”

I could easily overlook his crankyness, cockyness, and overall ****-poor attitude but what I have a very hard time turning a blind eye to is the negative comments he has made about many of his contemporaries. Men who risked just as much, accomplished just as much, and some who gave even more than Yeager did. And the vast majority of those folks do not have to have special consideration given for their bad behavior. Why should Yeager?

Chad would you suggest he’s any different than any of the original Mercury 7 astronauts? Not many saints in that bunch and egos and attitude to spare. Seems like they took thier shots at others and each other as well.

What the PR machine churns out and the reality are more often then not two different things. Vietnam ace Randy Cunningham certainly blew his image away. Sure sounds like Steve Ritchie has and ego and attitude to go with it.

Read any thread on this forum about Douglas Bader and you see how people react to him. The Reach for the Sky hero I read about as a kid sure has changed over the years as the image got scraped away by the historians. arrogant, abrasive and set in his opinions and the hell with everyone else.

Sounds like a fighter pilot.

As far as his recent comments, all say here what I say on WIX where they also give him a terrible time…give him a break.
He’s old and cranky.
Yes, he may be a jerk (as are many celebrities I’ve met), but he still accomplished a lot.
Whatever his current disposition, he still was an ace in the war, flying aircraft few of us could and facing death daily.
Surviving that, he did some very risky flying in a dangerous time. A lot of very talented guys died testing the early high performance jets of the 40s-60s.
You have to give him credit for that.

I could easily overlook his crankyness, cockyness, and overall ****-poor attitude but what I have a very hard time turning a blind eye to is the negative comments he has made about many of his contemporaries. Men who risked just as much, accomplished just as much, and some who gave even more than Yeager did. And the vast majority of those folks do not have to have special consideration given for their bad behavior. Why should Yeager?

I have never met the gentleman but did have the please to meet Bob Hoover who I believe was a ‘colleague’ of Yeager when on ops in the UK. Bob Hoover demonstrated a high level of professionalism for more than 50 years that I believe Yeager never came close to. Yeager’s claim to being the first human to fly through the sound barrier was very dubious and had much to do with the politics of the time which required a military officer rather than a civilian to claim the crown.

Bob Hoover flew Spits in the MTO with the USAAF. He wasn’t with Yeager in England. He was with him during the test pilot time. Seems to me he was flying chase on the X-1 the day Yeager broke the sound barrier.

As for Yeager’s comments on the Brits. Clearly his experience was a poor one. One doesn’t have to dig too hard to find that there were resentments on the parts of both the Brits and the Yanks. One doesn’t have to look too hard to find that there were also great friendships and relationships too.

Getting worked up over the comments of one former fighter pilot seems a bit silly to me. I don’t imagine he much cares at this point what the rest of us think who don’t know him. The one time I met him, he was pleasant enough. It’s not like there was time to chat as the line for his autograph was a bit long. I’ve met and gotten to know a number of RAF and USAAF pilots over the years. There are pleasant personalities and some who are more abrasive. As near as I can tell that applies to the rest of us too.

Bob you just made my day.
Back in the late seventies, I sent many American, North of the border on Haggis Hunts.
Sorry about that my Scottish brothers.

I certainly do give him credit for what he has done, that’s why he was a hero of mine. it’s his hatred of the British I can’t get my head around.

Really, hatred?

Based on the twitter comment?

I’m sorry to report, many Americans probably have similar tales during the war…and after.
As the public affairs officer at Bentwaters I took many calls from unhappy UK people….more than a few were broadly similar to what he said.
Yes, 95% of the English loved us (or at least our money 🙂 ), but there will always be the 5%… It’s human nature.

Saw this and had to chuckle…

It’s his loss ,shame he really had a chance to be a well loved hero over here but instead a figure of ,not really sure what to put.