CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It was 75 years ago Friday when an unknown country boy from Lincoln County, West Virginia became a household name in the history of aviation.
Research test pilot Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager, climbed into the the cramped cockpit of the Bell X-1 experimental aircraft while it was strapped to the belly of a B-29 aircraft. When released he fired the ship’s four rockets and within two minutes had climbed to an altitude of 56,000 feet and in the process eclipsed MACH 1, the speed of sound. It was the first time the feat had been accomplished.
During a 2004 interview with MetroNews, Yeager was rather indifferent to the accomplishment more than 50-years later and said it was the job he and the team were tasked to do.
“We didn’t know we could break the sound barrier. We didn’t plan to break it October 14, 1947, but it was something that had to be done,” Yeager said in the radio interview.
The accomplishment was the first step in the space race and ushered in a new era in aviation. Yeager noted it wasn’t an easy accomplishment and it was dangerous, but the risk to him was acceptable to advance mankind’s knowledge.
“You take your chances and you’re either successful or you aren’t. A lot of guys bought the farm out there at Edwards (Air Force Base) fooling around in airplanes that weren’t designed like the X-1 and ended up killing themselves. But that’s research flying,” he said.
The flight also propelled Yeager to a place of permanent prominence in history and made the young man from Mud River a household name.
A lesser known fact is Yeager accomplished the flight with broken ribs. He’d been thrown from a horse the night before, but refused to tell his superiors for fear he would be grounded. He told only his close friend and confidant Jack Ridley about the incident because the injury made it impossible to close the door on the aircraft once he was seated. According to Yeager, Ridley cut the handle off a broom in the hangar and hid it inside the cockpit which enabled him to reach the door latch when he climbed inside from the B-29.
Yeager died in December 2020. His widow, Victoria Yeager, has made it her life’s mission to continue to honor her late husband’s contributions to the nation. She’s now promoting a new book, co-authored with the General, which includes many of his famous sayings and quirky wisdom gathered from his upbringing in the hills of West Virginia. The book, “101 Chuck Yeager-isms” is now on sale.