Page 3 - Aerotech News and Review, February 5, 2021

Locals share memories of Chuck Yeager

by Larry Grooms on Okinawa, Japan. Ruby Thompson
special to Aerotech News said he used to come through the shop
where she worked with his F-15s. “He
Most any place you can name has was friendly all the time. He would take
a local claim to fame. Salinas has time to talk to you,” she said. Seeing
Steinbeck, Nashville has Elvis, Inde- Yeager sometime later at Edwards, she
pendence, Mo., has Mark Twain and again found him to be personable. And
Harry Truman. he remembered her.
For Southern California’s High Des- Asked about the topics of conversa-
ert Aerospace Valley, the big name is tion, she said it was mostly about air-
Chuck Yeager, prototype for test pilots craft maintenance. Did she know Chuck
defined by having what came to be Yeager enlisted in the military as an
called “The Right Stuff.” aircraft mechanic at age 18 with just a
Chuck Yeager, who finally met an high school diploma and no flight ex-
inevitable death he cheated in aerial perience? And did she know he lacked
warfare and a high-risk flight-testing a college degree? She hadn’t known
career, would have celebrated his 98th all of that, but could understand why
birthday this Feb. 13. Air Force photograph he seemed to be so at ease relating to Air Force photograph
Although he called many places Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager people with shared career interests and P-51D-20NA, Glamorous Glen III, is the aircraft in which Yeager achieved most
home, from the impoverished Appala- mutual respect, something he didn’t al- of his aerial victories.
chian farm of his childhood to military ways perceive in relations with some
bases around the world, Edwards Air construction at the Rosamond gate en- of his colleagues and superior officers.
Force Base (then called Muroc) was the trance to Edwards AFB. He wrote in his autobiography that he wicked sense of humor Shoffner expe- curse by changing Mojave Boulevard
place where he leaped into history by Completed by the city over 20 years felt patronized by “officers who looked rienced personally. Recalling an early to Yeager Boulevard, and erecting a
being the first to fly beyond the speed of annual celebrations, the Aerospace down their noses at my ways and ac- encounter with Yeager, Shoffner said Yeager statue on the corner.
he was standing at the end of a slow
The words complicated, complex
of sound. And from that Oct. 14, 1947, Walk of Honor’s bronze and marble cent,” characterizing him as being
day, it was to Edwards that he returned monuments along both sides of Lan- dumb and downhome. line at a retirement luncheon in the Of- and challenging tend to come up in
ficer’s Club, when he sensed someone
conversations with people who knew
time and again over the next seven de- caster Boulevard tell the stories of 100 Dennis Shoffner, retired now in was behind him and turned around. Chuck Yeager. But even former crit-
cades. test pilots whose extraordinary determi- Rosamond after a public affairs career
Worldwide celebrity was unavoid- nation, skill and vision blazed pathways spanning 30 years at Edwards, is one “Chuck’s right behind me,” Shoffner ics and rivals acknowledge him as a
leader possessing courage, vision and
said. “After a beat, all I could think to
able. Even with his best-selling auto- from Earth to the Moon in the Ameri- who interacted with Chuck Yeager say was, ‘You buying lunch?’ Chuck personal charm, without actually hav-
biography co-written with Leo Janus; can Century of Aerospace. frequently and long after the general looks up and says, ‘Not the way you ing attended charm school. As a wom-
Tom Wolfe’s novel, “The Right Stuff,” Gen. Chuck Yeager was in the Walk retired but continued to work for $1 eat.’” an appearing in a video for his Jan. 15
and Hollywood’s movie version of the of Honor’s first class of five test pilots a year in support of Air Force public On another occasion, Yeager casu- memorial service put it, Chuck Yeager
book, there were different sides to this in 1990, sharing the stage with World relations. ally asked Shoffner, “What’s the song was “someone who didn’t suck-up to
complicated man experienced by peo- War II Gen. Jimmy Doolittle; X-15 “He was an excellent guy one- a guy sings in the shower when he’s generals.”
ple close to his life and work. Some of speed record holder William J. “Pete” on-one. He just didn’t do crowds,” getting too much sex?” Shoffner didn’t Yeager’s earliest encounter with the
those people whose memories fill the Knight; pioneering Lockheed test pilot Shoffner said. Characterizing Yeager know. “Didn’t think you would,” Yea- minefields planted along the path of
gaps are included here. And most of Tony LeVier; and A. “Scott” Cross- as “a solitary guy,” Shoffner recalled ger said. Everybody got a laugh. public celebrity occurred when he ar-
those named or quoted still reside in field, first to fly at twice the speed of Yeager having said on more than one Shoffner said you rarely knew when rived in England with the 363rd Fighter
this High Desert and mountain region sound. Yeager was the longest surviv- occasion, ‘everybody’s got a handful the playful joker would emerge from Squadron in Leiston, Suffolk. He de-
of Southern California. ing member of that class. of give-me’s and a mouthful of much the general’s serious business demean- scribed the place as, “three concrete
Outliving contemporaries and col- Yet history is still being recorded by obliged.’ And there were no shortages or, even when schmoozing with VIPs. runways surrounded by a sea of mud,”
leagues can be a downside of old age, those who knew Chuck Yeager behind of handouts, including autographed On one occasion, Shoffner and Yeager and said the local Brits, “resented hav-
but here again, the base of Chuck Yea- the scenes, on and off the job, and off photos, VIP luncheons, tours, brief- were leading Orange County Congress- ing 7,000 Yanks descend on them, their
ger’s historical durability is anchored the record. ings and banquets, which Yeager took man Bob Dornan on an inspection tour pubs and their women, and were rude
by four Aerospace Valley institutions, One revealing glimpse into General in stride as just as much a part of his of the YF-23 testing program. and nasty.”
the Lancaster-based Society of Ex- Yeager’s working relationships with sworn duty as flying combat missions Shoffner remembers Yeager pointing One long-running controversy dog-
perimental Test Pilots, the City of Lan- subordinates comes from a Lancaster and flying aircraft to the ragged edge out the smallest fixtures and features on ging Yeager’s image revolved around
caster’s Aerospace Walk of Honor, woman who met him when she was a of destruction. an aircraft some distance away, cred- his resume and qualifications for being
Palmdale’s Blackbird Airpark, and the 19-year-old Air Force avionics and sys- Despite his rank and reputation for iting his vaunted 20/10 vision. Later, permitted to do all the things he did
Air Force Flight Test Museum under tems specialist at her first duty station being a tough customer, Yeager had a Shoffner asked Yeager if he could re- faster, cheaper, and arguably better than
ally see what he was talking about? Of anybody on hand. Yeager took the Bell
course not. X-1 job after civilian company test pilot
Slick Goodlin held out for a payday of
Col. Gary Aldrich, retired U.S. Air not less than $150,000 to make a run at
Force, had one of the longer-running the sound barrier. Yeager did the job
working experiences with Yeager at for his regular monthly Air Force pay
the Test Pilot School where Yeager — $283.
had served as commandant earlier in Early on there were complaints Yea-
his career. ger lacked the educational pedigree to
“We hung our helmets in the same be an officer, let alone a one-star gen-
place, but I was a captain and he was a eral and test pilot. That beef ignored the
general,” Aldrich said. But on a person- fact that Yeager successfully complet-
al level, Yeager’s granddaughter was ed training at the Flight Performance
the young Aldrich family’s babysitter. School (later redesignated the U.S.
Yeager trained at the Test Pilot Air Force Test Pilot School), in 1946
School in 1946 and returned as the and finished postgraduate level instruc-
schools’ commandant from 1962 to tion in the Air War College at Maxwell
1966. He returned to the school fre- AFB, Ala., in 1951. His graduating
quently, making it a practice to address thesis was on the development of short
the pilots at graduation, typically deliv- takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft.
ering the same five or six stories and Conferral of the title officer and gentle-
warning against doing anything in an man came with the occupational haz-
airplane that could result in having their ards in learning to fix broken airplanes,
name painted on a street sign at Ed- overcoming chronic airsickness, being
wards. (An inside joke for many years a moving target in an aerial shooting
was that all the street signs at Edwards gallery, and flying airplanes built on
Air Force photograph were named in memory of deceased theories and slide-rule math.
Chuck Yeager next to experimental aircraft Bell X-1 #1, Glamorous Glennis. pilots.) Eventually Yeager became the
last man standing, so the base broke the See YEAGER, Page 4

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