Chuck Yeager

Many advances have occurred in the history of flying, Starting with the first flight of the Wright brothers to the investigation of space, and perhaps many more in the years to come. But one of the most important of these advances is the breaking of the sound barrier by one of the most prominent figures in the history of flying, by General Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager.

Chuck Yeager, who was born in Myra West Virginia on 13 February 1923, was the son of Albert and Susie Yeager. They lived on the upper Mud River and made several moves to different areas in West Virginia. When Chuck was born he had an older brother named Roy, to which he followed around since Roy was such a big guy nobody would mess with him. A little later on he had a sister named Dorris Ann, though she died at age two from an accident due to Roy and Chuck playing with a loaded twelve gauge shot gun.

As a child, Chuck would help his father with many of his jobs, like gas drilling and such. This work greatly benefited Chuck in the long run. Many of the valves and engines on the airplanes he would later fly were similar to the equipment his father used.

When Chuck was around the age of twenty, he decided to enlist in the Army Air Corps to be a mechanic on airplanes.

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After a year of flight training he received his pilot wings (a pin of an eagle and the right to fly aircraft), and began flying P-39's which most pilots did not like. It was against regulation for any pilot who had been shot down to go back into combat, for fear that they would get shot down again and tortured into telling how the French Underground works. The Glamorous Glennis was retired on 15 May 1950, after eighty-two glide and powered flights, by ten different pilots. After about a year as a mechanic, he was accepted for the flying sergeant program in 1942.

On 5 March 1944, Chuck was shot down over German occupied England on his ninth mission, he was forced to eject and hurt his leg in the process. Quite a contrast as compared to his fellow pilots, who looked like raccoons from their goggles while flying. But Chuck Yeager, being Chuck Yeager and using the stubbornness he learned from his father, begged President Eisenhower to permit him to return to combat.

Chuck Yeager has been the recipient of every major award in the field or in fighting. Glamorous Glennis is now on display in Washington D. Though the sound barrier was broke in October of 1947, the public did not hear word till June of 1948, a period of eight months. After launched, he then proceeded to ignite his engines and rocket toward a speed of 622 miles an hour, breaking the sound barrier, called Mach one (The higher the altitude the less the speed of sound is, the lower the altitude the more the speed of sound is). The French Underground took Chuck to the Pyranees Mountains, where he and another rescued pilot were released to cross the Mountains on their own, in an attempt to reach the neutral Spanish boarder. Though his life of flying and knowledge did not stop there, he went on to write an autobiography in 1985 with a man named Leo Janos, this autobiography was very simply titled, Yeager. Later in the war, the Germans introduced the first jet plane, it was called the Messerschmitt Me 262, to which Chuck had the pleasure of shooting down in his slower P-51 Mustang.

Approximate Word count = 1874
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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