Chuck Yeager, also known as Charles Elwood Yeager, was the first pilot in history to have moved past the speed of sound in a flight.
Yeager was born February 13, 1923, to farming parents Susie Mae and Albert Hal Yeager in Myra, West Virginia. He trained at the Citizens Military Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana, during the summers of 1939 and 1940.
Yeager enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces on September 12, 1941. He got a job as an aircraft mechanic at George Air Force Base, Victorville, California. However, Yeager was not eligible for flight training because of his age and educational background.
The timing, however, was right because the US has entered into World War II and they were making a change in their recruiting parameters. Yeager has a very sharp vision, visual acuity of 20/10. He even demonstrated this by shooting a deer at 550 meters. He showed his mettle as a pilot and was chosen for flight training. Yeager demonstrated outstanding flying skills and shone as a combat pilot. The fact that he was an aircraft mechanic also, proved to be quite resourceful in testing times.
On October 12, 1944, he became the first pilot in his group to make “ace in a day,” meaning shooting five enemy aircraft in a single mission.
Yeager remained in the Air Force after the war, becoming a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field. He was selected to fly the rocket-powered Bell XS-1 to explore high-speed flight scenarios, with an intention to break the sound barrier.
Two nights before the date for the flight to take off, Yeager got himself in a horse-riding accident, wherein he broke two ribs. A doctor taped his ribs. Only his wife, his co-pilot Jack Ridley knew about the accident. Yeager was in terrible pain, that he couldn’t seal the hatch of X-1 by himself. So, he used the end of a broom handle in the form of a lever, to seal the hatch.
On October 14, 1947, Yeager broke the sound barrier flying the X-1 Glamorous Glennis at Mach 1.05, at an altitude of 45,000 feet , over the Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. The news was made public in June 1948. The X-1, that he flew is now at National Air and Space Museum
Thereafter, Yeager went on to break many other speed and altitude records.
Chuck Yeager commanded many fighter squadrons in Germany, the Vietnam war, the Soviet Union in more. His career spanned 3 decades, finally retiring in 1975.
On October 14, 2012, on the 65th anniversary of breaking the sound barrier, Yeager achieved the record again, at the age of 89, flying as co-pilot in a McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle piloted by Captain David Vincent out of Nellis Air Force Base
In 1973, Yeager was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, arguably aviation’s highest honor.
The man who never attended college is considered by many as one of the greatest pilots of all time.
Chuck Yeager – Wives
Yeager named his plane and its later versions as Glamorous Glen, after his wife Glennis, whom he regarded as his good luck charm. 
They have four children. Glennis died in 1990. In 2000, Yeager dated actress Victoria Scott ‘D Angelo, 35 years younger, and married her in 2003.
Yeager passed away on December 7, 2020, at age 97, in a Los Angeles hospital.
