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9 Incredible Achievements Of The 91-Year-Old Retired Air Force General Who Broke The Sound Barrier
9 Incredible Achievements Of The 91-Year-Old Retired Air Force General Who Broke The Sound Barrier
Mar 21, 2014, 00:46 IST
Business Insider
REUTERSRetired Air Force General Chuck Yeager answers questions from the media, during a press conference honouring the 50th anniversary of his first supersonic flight, October 14 at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1949 in a Bell X-1 aircraft similar to the one behind him, nicknamed "Glamourous Glennis.
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There has never been anyone quite like retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Chuck Yeager.
Yeager, 91, has led a life full of unbelievable heroics and achievements epic enough to warrant having a book, "The Right Stuff," and a movie made about him.
Here are 9 of the amazing things Yeager has done so for in life.
When fighting in World War Two, Yeager became the first in his flight group to make "ace in a day" - he shot down five enemies in a single mission.upload.wikimedia.orgYeager's P-51D-20NA, which he named Glamorous Glen III.
Yeager also scored one of the first air-to-air victories of the war against a German Messerschmitt ME262 jet fighter.
upload.wikimedia.orgMesserschmitts were the world's first operational jet fighters.
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On October 14, 1947, Yeager was the first person to break the sound barrier by flying an X-1 at Mach 1.07. At the time, he had two broken ribs which he sustained from falling off a horse two days before the flight.
upload.wikimedia.orgChuck Yeager posing in the cockpit of the X-1, the vehicle that he broke the soundbarrier with.
After an enemy pilot defected to South Korea, Yeager tested his MiG-15 becoming one of the first American pilots to fly that craft.
Yeager became the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School. Simultaneously, he also set a record for completing five flights in the NASA M2-F1 lifting body.
upload.wikimedia.orgThe M2-F1 is an unpowered prototype aircraft that is towed through the air by another aircraft.
On June 22, 1969 Yeager was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and became the vice-commander of the Seventeenth Air Force.
