Charles “Chuck” Yeager, 1923 to 2020

There are men of distinction, and men of honor. We look up to them. Higher up the totem pole of life there are champions who bask in rarefied air. We must look way up there to see them. Only a very few become heroes, risking their lives for the good of humanity. We know them at first sight. But only once in an era someone comes along who repeats and repeats at this awesome level and he shows us what is possible when we push the envelop of man and machine to their limits—and beyond. This man is a legend. He is a combat ace, who shot down 13 German aircraft during WWII, who nearly lost his life over France, but he climbed the daunting Pyrenees to reach Spain and back to freedom. He had earned the right to come home a hero. Instead he climbed into the cockpit of another aircraft and flew back into combat. He later became the most famous test pilot in human history by pushing his craft through the sound barrier. An Englishmen’s aircraft exploded into pieces while trying to do the same thing. This modest man from the hills of West Virginia, with the looks and the charm of a Hollywood star, stands all alone at the pinnacle of legends and aces. He is known to every boy or girl who ever dreamed of flying a fighter aircraft into the wild blue yonder. His name is Chuck Yeager.

Chuck Yeager died today at age 97. He was a “lowly” high school graduate who showed the world that he definitely had the right stuff. His name will live forever in aviation history.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

--John Gillespie Magee, fighter pilot
died in a mid-air collision over England, 1941