Warbird Information Exchange

There was a great documentary by NOVA a long time ago.
A reporter, who had spent a lot of time with Jimmy Doolittle, commented about asking him another question.
He kept referring to him as "General".
Doolittle replied "I got out of the General business a long time ago... ...my name's Jim Doolittle!"
Doolittle was someone, that even Yeager respected.

Eric "Winkle" Brown. Clarence "Bud" Anderson. Bob Hoover. All phenomenal aviators that any of us would have probalby really enjoyed sitting down at a bar with.

Actually got to do that at Wings Over Houston one year. Totally approachable, friendly, but professional, we talked CFI shop and planes for most of an hour and I was just floored! Same with most of Doolittle's guys.

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

RIP general Yeager.

Personality shortcomings aside, he definitely had the 'right stuff' and was in the right place at the right time to to be a part of history. Some of the more accomplished individuals who I have met in my lifetime are also some of the most unpleasant people to be around. His gruff attitude and ego are probably what helped him be so successful in his career.

Now for my personal Chuck Yeager story. When I was a kid in the early 90s my dad took us to a local airshow where Chuck was one of the VIPs. At one of the merchandise booths I bought a set of trading cards with pictures of the planes that were in attendance, including the P-51 painted as "Glamorous Glennis". We heard that Chuck was at the show and split up to go try to get his autograph. My older brother who was 10 at the time wandered into one of the roped off VIP tents. He went up to an Air Force officer in uniform and asked if Chuck was there, so the officer led my brother to Chuck as said, "General, this young man wants to ask you something". My brother asked for an autograph and Chuck basically told him to scram. At that point some of the men in uniform around him, presumably all higher ranking officers and VIPs, started heckling Chuck and gave him grief. He reluctantly pulled out a pen and autographed my trading card. I still have that autographed card.

Our former next door neighbor was a fairly well known Navy test pilot who went on to fly the SR-71 for NASA. We onced asked him if he'd met any other famous aviators as a test pilot. One of the names he mentioned was Yeager. When we asked what Yeager was like, he basically said he was an a$$.

With that said, I've always be in awe of Yeager's accomplishments and service to the U.S.. Too bad he didn't show a little more humility.

I kept out of it, but Yeager's most famous accomplishment, the one he traded and self promoted on for decades, was the X-1 and breaking the sound barrier.

Which he did knowingly unfit to fly. With two broken ribs and conspiring to hide that fact from his superiors. Having to have his famous stick, because he was incapable of reaching everything he should, and thus putting the whole mission in jeopardy.

You can argue that the X-1 was obsolete by the time the famous flight rolled around, with technology and aerodynamics leaving it behind, in which case it was grandstanding pure and simple, or that the X-1 was vitally important, in which case it was criminal negligence to proceed.

_________________
Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

Homer Hickam (also a West Virginian) has this to say about Yeager's "gruffness" [emphasis mine]:

"As much as his Air Force superiors were confident of his abilities, Yeager was also confident in himself. He was also sometimes harsh in his assessment of other pilots. When Scott Crossfield, the first pilot to go twice the speed of sound, crashed and died, Yeager quipped that Crossfield had simply gone beyond his abilities as a pilot. Yeager wasn't cruel, he was just honest, an honesty that sometimes seemed harsh by the standards of anyone not from the heartless hollows of the West Virginia coalfields. There, I can tell you from personal experience, people tend to say what they think whether anyone likes it or not."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 877640001/

I will also say that my experiences with military pilots tend to lean towards the dark humor side. I refer to the above Yeager comment on Crossfield:

When I told a Navy aviator buddy of mine that I was going back to flight school and getting my license, and the fact that he had urged me to do so, I also told him that if I die it's his fault.

His reply?

"Can I have your stereo?"

It's just the way it is.


As to your story about your then 10 year old brother and Yeager in the VIP tent.....

Firstly, you write:

"My older brother who was 10 at the time wandered into one of the roped off VIP tents."

I wasn't there but the way you write this makes it sound like the tent was for VIPs. A place away from the crowd. It was "roped off", you said. Personally I would not walk into a roped off area.

So Perhaps Yeager went there to get out of the Sun. Maybe he needed to relax away from the crowds a little bit. Maybe he needed to rest a little.

And this kid comes in where he's not supposed to be.

I've never been a national hero but from what I've read it can be a grueling, annoying thing. Hollywood stars tell you this all the time.

So in *this* case, assuming the VIP tent was for VIP's only, I can sort of understand Yeager's annoyance.

As for the rest of the stories - I wasn't there so I can't comment.

But maybe Hickam has something...maybe those of us not from the hard scrabble West Virginian coal mines don't understand.

I think when they talk about his West Virginia roots , it brings to mind my mother's Appalachian upbringing. Before 1935, there was no welfare, food stamps, or government programs. You could easily starve to death or live in abject poverty in the United States. It was a very tough existence in some areas. Very hard work for very low pay. So, he had that fierce determination and will to survive and thrive. He probably was a good student in high school .
His reticence and unvarnished personality was also influenced by being shot down and evading capture, by seeing many fine squadron mates lost , and by his own scoring of kills on the battlefield. Everything in his life was deadly serious.

No matter where you're from that quote from Yeager about Crossfield "simply exceeding his piloting abilities" is a dick thing to say, aside from not really being true. The NTSB did assign some blame to Crossfield but also put a lot of blame on ATC for not diverting him away from the thunderstorms. Crossfield was clearly at least as talented and accomplished as Yeager, and it would appear that Yeager resented that. I know some people who worked with Crossfield on the centennial of flight events, it sounds like he was a Type A personality and could be irascible, but had much better people skills than Yeager. He did tell one friend that Yeager's book was pretty good "if you like fiction", but I don't think he said stuff like that in public.


-

_________________
http://www.biplanerides1.com/

Whenever the Crossfield crash comes up, I'm reminded that I was standing on the ramp about 35 miles away from where he crashed. My IA friend and I were commenting that it looked like a really bad flying day a few miles north and we were both glad to be on the ground. Those storms were big, nasty, and obvious and I never understood why Crossfield didn't deviate around them.

Final authority rests with the pilot in command (PIC). Crossfield chose to duel with thunderstorms and lost.

It might be a "dick" thing to say but if you do enough reading, and talking to military and/or test pilots, you find that that is commonly how pilots react to the death of a friend or acquaintance. They chide the departed for being stupid. Doesn't matter if they were or were not stupid.

And Yeager saw a lot of death. Came close himself.

I think that most of the ex military pilots I know would disagree with that and would hesitate to criticize a dead comrade, especially in public, but I'm sure there's a wide spectrum of reactions.



-

_________________
http://www.biplanerides1.com/

Yes there is a wide spectrum of reactions. My experiences...with lots of reading of the auto-bio's of military people added to direct experience...show that they react exactly how I described.

It's a coping mechanism. So you'll run into it more often where the person has faced/seen a lot of death.

But as you say, not everyone will react that way.

I wasn't a pilot but I flew with a few and was in the military. I didn't see lots of death, far from it, but I was around enough for it to keep me awake some nights.
That said, I've seen some widely differing views on how people cope with it. I've seen and heard all kinds of dark humor and even yes, browbeating the dead because they were 'stupid,' all as a coping mechanism.
I'll never forget the smoking car, flipped upside down with the claws of the charred hands of one of the (of course, quite dead) occupants sticking out one side. A prior-service Ranger was using the smoking hulk of the car to heat a can of beanie weenies. An EMT showed up, totally disgusted at such a thought, and asked how he could do that. He calmly said with a blank expression, picking at the can so as to not get burned, "Because we didn't bring any [bleep]ing marshmallows."
At the time, that was the single funniest thing I ever heard and used to tell that story often. It was only a few ago I realized it was just how we all coped with something that horrific. That guy had seen far worse than that on the streets of Mogadishu.

_________________
Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

After 32 years of dealing with the aftermath of people's mistakes/bad luck I'll never critique the coping mechanisms of those dealing with the aftermath, as long as it isn't self destructive.