{"id":2481,"date":"2017-10-23T21:47:21","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T02:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/doctoraviation.com\/?p=2481"},"modified":"2020-08-03T13:59:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T18:59:36","slug":"chuck-yeager-team-broke-sound-barrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doctoraviation.com\/chuck-yeager-team-broke-sound-barrier\/","title":{"rendered":"Chuck Yeager and the Team that Broke the Sound Barrier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently we celebrated the 70th<\/sup> anniversary of Chuck Yeager\u2019s breaking the sound barrier.\u00a0 I chronicled that event in the last blog<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Yeager, in his autobiography, was very clear that this was a team effort.\u00a0 This blog will highlight three of the key team members, what they contributed and what became of them.<\/p>\n

Albert Boyd<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"
Albert Boyd<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chuck Yeager was the chief test pilot.\u00a0 This selection was made by (then) Colonel Albert Boyd.\u00a0 The top brass in Washington DC had given Boyd free reign in the selection, but he definitely felt the pressure to get it right.\u00a0 Boyd commanded the Flight Section at Wright Field (now Wright-Patterson AFB) in Dayton Ohio.\u00a0 As a result he had a bird\u2019s eye view of each man\u2019s ability.\u00a0 Boyd\u2019s selection of Yeager was risky on a couple of accounts.<\/p>\n

First, Chuck Yeager did not possess a college degree.\u00a0 Most of the other pilots did.\u00a0 Secondly, Yeager was one of the newer test pilots in the unit, so experience was not on his side.\u00a0 What he did have was a keen sense of mechanical things, developed on the family property working on an old pickup truck.\u00a0 Yeager would frequently fix his own jet when it broke while he was away at air shows. His other plus was his extreme courage and calm in the face of adversity.<\/p>\n

Yeager viewed Boyd as a father figure and had the utmost respect for him.\u00a0 He did not want \u201cto let the old man down\u201d.\u00a0 Following the historic flight, Boyd was eventually promoted to Major General.\u00a0 He retired from the Air Force in 1957.\u00a0 Before that day, Boyd had flown every single type of aircraft in the Air Force inventory.\u00a0 He commanded the experimental Test Pilot School, and was the first commander of the USAF Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB.\u00a0 He passed away in 1976 at the age of 69.\u00a0 He is known as \u201cThe Father of Modern Flight Testing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bob Hoover<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/figure>\n

Robert A. Hoover was Yeager\u2019s back up pilot, friend, and partner in crime.\u00a0 The two were like two old school chums who got along famously.\u00a0 They would egg one another on in flight and in pranks.\u00a0 Yeager personally requested Hoover as his backup pilot with Colonel Boyd.\u00a0 Hoover once had to talk Yeager down for a blind landing in the Bell X-1.\u00a0 The canopy had frozen over so badly that Yeager could not see outside.<\/p>\n

He left active duty in 1948 and began life as a test pilot for North American Aviation and instructor of military pilots.\u00a0 He set several aviation records.\u00a0 However, he made his real mark on the Air Show circuit flying a P-51 Mustang called, Ole Yeller.\u00a0 He flew into the 1990s.<\/p>\n

One of the Doctor Aviation students met Hoover at Oshkosh several years ago.\u00a0 They have a great photo with the legend.<\/a>\u00a0 Hoover passed away on October 25, 2016 at the age of 94.<\/p>\n

Jack Ridley<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"
Yeager (L) and Ridley (R) circa 1947<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arguably the most important man in the entire venture, perhaps more important than Yeager himself, was Jackie Lynwood Ridley.\u00a0 Jack Ridley was a test pilot and a top flight test engineer.\u00a0 According to Yeager, Ridley possessed two important gifts.\u00a0 One, he was a very talented engineer.\u00a0 Two, unlike most really good engineers, he could break down and explain advanced engineer concepts into simple language.<\/p>\n

Boyd handpicked Ridley to accompany Yeager, telling Ridley to stay at Yeager\u2019s side.\u00a0 Boyd knew that Ridley could compensate for what Yeager lacked in formal education.\u00a0 There were many sessions where Ridley tutored Yeager after engineering meetings to ensure complete understanding on Yeager\u2019s part.<\/p>\n

Following the historic flight, Ridley was sent to Washington State to help with the Boeing B-47 Stratojet.\u00a0 Soon thereafter he was stationed at Muroc (soon to be Edwards) where he spent nearly a decade working on developing an entire generation of aircraft.\u00a0 His biggest contribution was creating standardized procedures for both testing and data reduction and publishing of test flight data.\u00a0 Many of these procedures are still in use today at the Flight Test Center.<\/p>\n

Ridley was eventually promoted to Colonel.\u00a0 He was tragically killed in 1957 acting as the co-pilot on a C-47 that crashed into a snow covered mountain in Japan.\u00a0 The Mission Control Center at Edwards is named in his honor.<\/p>\n

As often is the case, the pilot gets the fame for breaking the sound barrier.\u00a0 This was no small feat.\u00a0 However, this feat was made possible by Yeager\u2019s coworkers, Albert Boyd, Bob Hoover<\/a> and Jack Ridley.\u00a0 Ironically, only Yeager lived to see the 70th<\/sup> anniversary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently we celebrated the 70th anniversary of Chuck Yeager\u2019s breaking the sound barrier.\u00a0 I chronicled that event in the last blog\u00a0\u00a0 Yeager, in his autobiography, was very clear that this was a team effort.\u00a0 This blog will highlight three of the key team members, what they contributed and what became of them. Albert Boyd Chuck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":338,"featured_media":2473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[39],"tags":[491,492,59,487,495,493,60,496,494],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChuck Yeager and the Team that Broke the Sound Barrier - Doctor Aviation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recently we celebrated the 70th Anniversary of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier. 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