Yesterday Charles Elwood Yeager, "The Fastest Man Alive" passed away at the age of 97. He was a World War 2 fighter ace and test pilot who became the first person to officially break the sound barrier in level flight (hence the nickname). Below is Steve Earle's song about Yeager from his Ghosts Of West Virginia album.
As a kid I wanted to be a fighter pilot and was fascinated by fighter planes and flight in general. I was in love the moment I first set foot in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. It was there that I got to see Glamorous Glennis, the Bell X-1 aircraft named for his wife that Yeager used to break the speed of sound.
Yeager was a bit of a badass, even managing to escape back to England and resume flying missions after being shot down over occupied Europe. He broke the sound barrier for the first time flying with a couple busted ribs. He'd fallen from a horse and broke them a couple nights before he went supersonic and just went to a civilian doctor to avoid being scrubbed from the flight. Another time he broke another speed record just in time to spoil a celebration that would have honored another pilot as the fastest man alive. Yeager also flew well over one hundred missions during the Vietnam War.
These photos are from Thunder Over Louisville, I unfortunately don't have any of Yeager or any of the aircraft he flew. Yeager was something of a legend in aviation, he even broke the sound barrier while flying copilot at the age of 89! While he has now flown on his feats and accomplishments will live on.