Mr. Supersonic
I had the good fortune today of getting Chuck Yeager to sign a copy of his autobiography for me.
As I mentioned, he was in the area, receiving an award at the Alabama Jubilee Hot Air Balloon show.
It was amazingly cool getting to see him in person and hear him speak... He gave basically a 15-minute or so biography of himself, and it was kind of interesting what he talked about... for example, he talked quite a bit about the X-1 test flights leading up to his historic flight, and then basically said that after that, he flew again, the plane was hard to fly, then it got easier, and that was the first time we broke the sound barrier, and then moved on, with just a tiny bit more detail that I've written here. Tons and tons of interesting info, but then almost nothing about the most interesting stuff. I guess he figures everybody already knows those stories (though it still would have been cool hearing them from him).
Still, an awesome experience indeed. Another bit of history I never thought I'd get a first hand run-in with.
Since my wife grew up knowing almost nothing about aviation or spaceflight, I've been trying to give her a remedial course in the last year or so. Several months back, I got her to watch "The Right Stuff," and it's really paid off. Since then, we've met both Yeager and Schirra, and I've been able to say, "Remember in that movie we watched..." So now she at least has some sense of how cool this is...

:: :: 21:04 :: David :: [permalink] ::