The Right Stuff & Chuck Yeager’s NF-104 incident

December 12th, 2022

 

NF-104 Straight up to space

NF-104 Straight up to space

 

NF-104 incident_Yeager in pressure suit

General Yeager wrote the NF-104 part in The Right Stuff. Tom Wolfe wasn’t quite getting it from their interview.

The production team asked General Yeager to re-enact his NF-104 flat spin scene.

He had choice words for them which ended in an emphatic “No! Anyone who tries will kill themselves.” Then Col Yeager felt he got off easy with his face burns and over 100 stitches. He not only lived, he got back on flying status and without the usual terrible burn scars.

Unfortunately, he was right. The production team got another pilot to re-enact the NF-104 flying and that pilot augured in. He wasn’t so lucky.

NF-104 incident_Page_ NF-104 smashed on the ground Yeager

c. GCYI

Protected: California Hall of Fame

March 28th, 2022

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Protected: A Trip to San Francisco

March 28th, 2022

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Protected: I Love to Dance!

March 28th, 2022

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Protected: 65th anniversary of Breaking Mach 1 with 65th Aggressors Squadron

March 28th, 2022

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

The Listeners by Walter De La Mare

March 26th, 2022

The Listeners

BY WALTER DE LA MARE

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
   Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
   Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
   Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
   No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
   Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
   That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
   To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
   That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
   By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
   Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
   Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
   That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
   Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
   From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
   And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
   When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Ultralights – There’s a time and a Place

March 24th, 2022

I like ultralights – flew one in Australia. But there is a time and a place regarding safety.

My late husband, General Chuck Yeager’s last active duty assignment was as Director of Safety. He saved millions of lives.

APPEAL DEMOCRAT NEWSPAPER March 24, 2022 EXCERPT and photo:

Victoria Yeager, widow of legendary pilot Chuck Yeager, told supervisors Tuesday of two encounters that she had with powered parachute pilots.

Victoria Yeager speaks to Yuba County Supervisors re aviation safety

Victoria Yeager speaks to Yuba County Supervisors re aviation safety

Victoria Yeager speaks to Yuba County Supervisors re aviation safety

Victoria Yeager speaks to Yuba County Supervisors re aviation safety

“I was on final … and an ultra-light was going right across.

I didn’t have many options. I couldn’t turn fast enough out of the way, so I had to duck down and hope that he didn’t duck down and hope that he didn’t do anything but just go straight across,” Yeager said. “Now already he’s doing something stupid, so I don’t know if he’s capable of doing anything more stupid and putting me in more danger. I ducked down and I got down low and I had to float, thank goodness the airport is wide and long. I floated for a long time because I was at too much speed and ultimately landed. Still got a little PTSD from that.

“Another incident was where the ultra-light pilot was thumbing his nose at the airport manager and taxiing up and down the taxiway. Now I wanted to go and take off on 3-2 north, because that’s where the winds were favoring. But that ultra-light went past me towards that area, so I went the other direction. And as I’m taxiing, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, he’s being belligerent, I wonder how much more belligerent he’s going to be and follow me and think it’s funny.’ So I did a little zig-zag to make sure he was still down there. So I took off downwind with the wind behind me which is not a good way to be. Better if you’re heading into the wind to take off.…

If you allow the ultra-lights to be there, it will be very very dangerous and very expensive.

However, if you continue to disallow them, you’ll be known as one of the safest places to fly and that’s I think where you want to be.”

c. GCYI & Appeal Democrat

General Yeager & General Robin Olds, Directors of Safety

March 17th, 2022
Brig Gen Robin Olds in front of F-4 in Vietnam 1967

Brig Gen Robin Olds in front of F-4 in Vietnam 1967

Brig General Robin Olds, considered a handsome man with a dashing mustache, was a highly regarded triple Ace from World War II and Vietnam. General Yeager and he served at the same time in Vietnam.

One of General Yeager’s later encounters with General Olds, General Yeager’s predecessor as Director of Safety, was when General Olds’ soon to be ex-wife, Ella Raines, a Hollywood actress, an alcoholic, refused to move out of the military housing reserved for the current Director of Safety. This required General Yeager to stay in the BOQ at Norton AFB for a month waiting for Ella to exit while Glennis waited in Grass Valley, CA. General Olds had retired from the Air Force in 1973 and had moved out. General Yeager subsequently held the post until he retired in 1975.

General Yeager changed the procedures and saved millions of lives.

c. GCYI

Protected: Raoul

March 9th, 2022

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Yeager’s Last World War II Mission – Missing the Biggest Battle of the Year

January 19th, 2022
Chuck Yeager World War II

Chuck Yeager World War II

Jan 15, 1945 Yeager’s buddy was the scheduler and had scheduled Yeager and himself as spares that day –  Yeager’s 61st and last WWII mission. No one aborted so Yeager led his buddy on a tour of southern France where he had been shot down, Lake Annecy, Geneva and then to Switzerland. They each dropped their wing fuel tanks made of paper mache and playfully used them as target practice.  Then they wound their way back to base in Leiston.

The crew chief came running up, seeing that they had dropped their tanks and had fired their guns, excitedly asked, “How many did you get?”

What?

Yeager recalls with disappointment that he missed the biggest battle that day; fifty-seven German planes were destroyed by their squadron.

But he made it through the war and after long 16 months, was about to be headed home to his lover and soon to be his wife, Glennis.

c. VSY