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If you've ever noticed the unique cool, calm and confident manner of speech that airline pilots have on the intercom / ATC net, it was Yeager who developed that attitude and style of speaking [1, 2] within pilot culture.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_Stuff_(book)
[2] https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/silky-smooth-c...
I'm sure Mr Yeager had an excellent style, but ATC radiotelephony procedures were developed in the 1930s and standardised by the ICAO in the early 1950s.
"Tower, I've lost three engines and a tail rotor."
"Copy, cleared to land 28R"
One of the coolest things I ever did was call him on the phone in 7th grade, and no joke, his secretary put him on the phone and I got to talk to him for a few minutes. He was nice to talk to, and humorously, had recently fallen off a horse... Again.
I was obsessed with the Discovery channel x-planes series, and ended up doing a video project for a local history day competition. My project partner's dad worked for an defense company, happened to know a guy that knew a guy that had his phone number.
Probably one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me.
I'm surprised by this. He lived in the town I grew up in, and we were told repeatedly to not visit/call/attempt to interview him. One of my friends tried anyway, and the interview was mostly grumbles about reading his book instead of asking stupid questions. He was known to be a sourpuss and to not hesitate hitting people with his cane.
This guy is fascinating and has such a rich history. As with many people with decorated history, though, he had some blind spots. One of these was that he was thoroughly enamoured with his own skill at training an air force:
> Q: Of all the pilots you've flown iwth, which do you respect the most and why?A: In 1971-73, I flew with the Pakistan Air Force in the war with India. They were the best in the world because they had the most experience - over 75 hours/month.
In 1971, the PAF was decisively routed after attempting a pre-emptive strike, leaving their navy (and soon they were gone too) and their ground forces with no air cover. The outcome was that Pakistan was split in two and lost half her territory despite the US dispatching the USS Enterprise (with Task Force 74) and the UK dispatching the HMS Eagle in support.
His own aircraft (painted in United Nations colours) was destroyed on the ground by a man who went on to be India's Navy Chief many years later. His account of the engagement makes for a good read, and there's a paragraph on Yeager's reaction to the destruction of the plane too -
> I never found out how the UN reacted to the destruction of its plane, but Yeager's response was anything but dispassionate. He raged to his cowering colleagues at a staff meeting. His voice resounding through the embassy, he proclaimed that the Indian pilot not only knew exactly what he was doing but had been specifically instructed by Indira Gandhi to blast Yeager's plane. In his book he later said that it was the Indian way of giving Uncle Sam "the finger"
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/history/1971war/1278-chuck...
A perfectly trained air force is not immune to poor strategy.
> I flew with the Pakistan Air Force in the war with India
That surprised me (as I'm too young to remember anything about the cold war), but the US siding with a country that was committing genocide in an effort to prevent a people from self determination. Pakistan killed millions of people and raped hundreds of thousands of women in their campaign, and it seems the US navy not only didn't condemn it, but actually supported it (including sending in a war fleet on the side of the genocidal marauders)
It sickens me.
Too bad. Just yesterday I was looking at Yeager quotes [1], these stood out as possibly similar to software, take what you will
There is no such thing as a natural born pilot. Whatever
my aptitudes or talents, becoming a proficient pilot was
hard work, really a lifetime’s learning experience. For
the best pilots, flying is an obsession, the one thing
in life they must do continually. The best pilots fly
more than the others; that’s why they’re the best.
Experience is everything. The eagerness to learn how and
why every piece of equipment works is everything. And
luck is everything, too.
Everybody that I’ve ever seen that enjoyed their job was
very good at it.
I like this quote! It's pretty applicable for all artisan-like activity, I think. It's well said and worth repeating over and over in different ways, but I wouldn't say it's a novel insight
Pretty sure that quote was in his Autobiography. I recall reading it when I read that book.
Honestly, I think XXX is an obsession is an aptitude or talent in itself.
From time to time, he would answer questions on Twitter. Once someone asked him “What did you think of the (German fighter jet) Me-262 the first time you saw it?”
His response: “The first time I saw an Me-262, I shot it down.”
A fast eye and a cool hand, a marksman who progressed and thrived through an incredible amount of changing technology. Also incredibly patient with that technology, which is why he was great test pilot as well.
If I remember correctly, he had to lay in ambush over the airfield where the Me-262s flew from, and wait for one to be at its most vulnerable (on the final approach while landing). Then he swooped down and opened up with his cannon. The speed disadvantage was so large, that he would have no chance otherwise.
But it's a cool answer :)
He was one of my earliest heroes. The movie "The Right Stuff" was released in 1983, when I was 12 years old. The movie and Yeager's autobiography, "Yeager, and Autobiography" were frequently consumed during my teenage years. I often watch the right stuff right up to that moment that the focus shifts away from Yeager.
I learned plenty from Yeager's story and his accomplishments. I admired how he became a pilot in WWII, as a "Flying Sergeant", how he worked to break the sound barrier, and how he sought combat commands in Korea and Vietnam.
Today, I am reminded of one minor anecdote that had a big impact. In the book, Yeager describes the treatment he used to avoid permanent burn damage from his F-104 accident in 1963. During college I crashed on my mountain bike and suffered road rash on the left side of my face. The ER doctor advised me that I should expect permanent scars. Remember Yeager's treatment for his face, I used the same (an alternating application of Vaseline and Hydrogen Peroxide). The treatment left me with no scars, just as it left Yeager with no scars.
The lesson for me is that we can learn valuable knowledge in unexpected places, but we have to seek it out. Having heroes, respected authors, interesting subjects, and/or a focus of curiosity is a great way to learn and become inspired. Chuck Yeager met many of these for me, from 1983 when I first found him, to recent years enjoying his Twitter feed. He was a larger than life legend who encouraged me to be more daring, and saved me from permanent scars.
Godspeed General Yeager
Just grepped through the book and found the incident you mentioned, but there's nothing about Vaseline and hydrogen peroxide. Are you sure you didn't read about this in a different book? If so, any idea where?
So, it was several days before I realized how bad
things really were. My face was swollen to the size of
a pumpkin, badly charred from being blowtorched.
Ol' Stan Bear came in and sat down. He said, "Well,
Chuck, I've got good news and bad news. The good
news is that your lungs have not been permanently
damaged from inhaling flame and smoke, and your
eye looks normal. The bad news is I'm gonna have to
hurt you like you've never hurt before in your life to
keep you from being permanently disfigured. And
I'm gonna have to do it every four days."
I stayed in the hospital a month, and every four
days, Doc started from the middle of my face and
neck, scraping away the accumulated scab. It was a
new technique developed to avoid horrible crisscross
scars as the skin grew beneath the scabs. And it
worked beautifully. I have only a few scars on my
neck, but my face healed perfectly smooth. The pain,
though, was worse than any I have ever known.> I used the same (an alternating application of Vaseline and Hydrogen Peroxide). The treatment left me with no scars, just as it left Yeager with no scars.
There is 0 references to this treatment methodology online, do you mind explaining further?
(I was shocked google books didn't even pull an excerpt!)
Be careful with hydrogen peroxide though. In researching it, I found a bunch of papers describing how hydrogen peroxide will permeate many different human tissues and then kill a wide variety of human cells, some of which don’t regenerate. For example, chondrocytes, the cells that produce/maintain cartilage.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=peroxide+apoptosis
Scared me off from using hydrogen peroxide as a wart treatment, even though it was having promising effects.
I also need more detail/info on this treatment.
I first heard of that name with Chuck Yeager's Air Combat on MS-DOS. An amazing game associated to hours of good time.
I can still hear the slightly tinny / distorted "Welcome to Chuck Yeager's Air Combat!" in my head. Good memories for sure.
EDIT: Nice, it's playable in a browser here: https://playclassic.games/games/combat-flight-simulator-dos-...
I was really into flight when I was a kid. Sometime before I was a teenager my mom found Chuck Yeager's autobiography at a garage sale and thought I might be interested in it. Who would've guessed that the Edwards AFB test pilots flight adventures would pale in comparison to their off base antics at the local bar/brothel. Apparently not my mother.
RIP Mr. Yeager, I learned more about life from you than I expected to.
I recommend his autobiography ("Yeager") -- it's briskly paced and readable.
On the fun side, here's his appearance on "What's My Line": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Tywtn5UJI&t=2m46s
Check out this great 1.5 hour interview with Chuck Yeager from 1991. His comments on NASA were particularly interesting.
A similarly noteworthy pilot is Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown - a guy who holds the records for most aircraft carrier deck landings and has flown more models of aircraft than anyone in history.
This interview with him is definitely worth a listen as he was also involved in so many moments of 20th century history!
Sad day but his past courage propelled us to new heights in similar ways his death will. Through remembrance and lessons learned. I've known his nephew for some time and he has a collection of very cool trinkets and memorabilia. Rest in peace general!
Please be like (a chairman) Chuck and try Kerbal Space Program. When you finished, install the RP-1 mod to stretch yourself even further. You can get some idea/sense how dangerous and rewarding what Chuck did back then.
If you've never read it, his biography reads like an action movie starting Tom Cruise, but it is his real life story.
Seriously, this is an amazing book: https://www.amazon.com/Yeager-Autobiography-Chuck/dp/0553256...
He was a two time fighter ace in WWII and broke the speed of sound. He almost died in a crash once as well, but walked away with half of his face burned up. The guy was incredible.
Since this is linked his to twitter, its interesting to note he has been very active on twitter. I've been following him for a while and he was always answering people questions.
At some point everyone's speed relative to ground goes to zero.
Chuck Yeager, James Doolittle - lives so incredible nobody would believe it if it wasn't true. It's why I tend to read more history books than fiction nowadays.
A small anecdote, I had the opportunity to shake the retired General Yeager's hand at a swearing-in ceremony at Beale AFB in 2006.
He seemed a bit tired after a long day in the Central Valley summer heat, and quite grumpy with a gaggle of NCOs from the recruiting office that asked him for an autograph. As it turns out his physician grounded him from flying his private plane earlier that week and I imagine that put him into quite the mood!
Truly one of the last of the old breed. Rest in peace General Yeager! To have have grown up in a world where ocean liners and steam locomotives were the primary means of long distance transportation to have experienced the cutting edge, making history along the way, then to have lived to see the modern age must truly have been wonderous.
Yeager wanted to be an astronaut but he lacked a college degree so NASA wouldn't let him.
But they decided he was good enough to run the school that trained astronauts!
I'm a kid of the 90's but my dad loves "The Right Stuff" so I grew up on that film. Such a cool story. Sorry to see he has passed.
Amazing guy, his challenges and the way he dealt with them, over his lifetime could teach a lot about handling stress and pressure.
His last tweet was professional and sort of sums him up in an eloquent, serene way.
"@usairforce
first time I flew M2-F1 lifting body. Handled fine.”
RIP Chuck Yeager.
You are a rare case of a verifiable legend. Legends never die.
amazing how such a racist asshole is celebrated. he's responsible for kicking the one black astronaut out from the mercury program. google it.
This is really sad. He was one of the greats.
44 years after the Wright Brothers first flew 120 feet, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. 22 years after that, man landed on moon.
51 years later ... still waiting for the future to arrive.
Godspeed, General.
It's not a great day for flying.
A few weeks ago his account tweeted this:
> Nov 28, 1964 – Launch: Mariner 4, NASA launches the first Mars fly-by spacecraft. Unmanned exploration is what @NASA should stick to.
Was this really his opinion?