EDWARDS AFB, Calif. - Retired Brig. Gen Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager, one of the most famous test pilots in the late 1940s and ‘50s, died Dec. 7. He was 97. Probably his most notable achievement was piloting the Bell X-1 experimental rocket plane, in which he became the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound in 1947, shortly after the founding of the U.S. Air Force as a separate service. Yeager also aided in pioneering modern aircraft development during his nine-year assignment as an experimental test pilot by test flying numerous experimental, production and foreign aircraft for the Air Force. This included taking the X-1A to Mach 2.44 in straight and level flight on Dec. 12, 1953. In 1945, after earning ace status, in a P-51 Mustang, for downing 13 German warplanes in WWII, including five Me-109 fighters in one day, Yeager was posted as a maintenance officer at the Air Force’s Flight Test Division at Wright Field, Ohio. He soon came to the attention of the division chief, Col. Albert Boyd, the father of Air Force flight test, who assigned him as an experimental test pilot. (Source: Air Force / Biography 12/09/20) Chuck Yeager - Death, Career & Facts - Biography
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