Chuck Yeager

When I was assigned to the 405^th Fighter Wing at Clark AB, Philippines, of course I knew that it was commanded by the famous Chuck Yeager who had been the first to break the speed of sound. However I did not get to know him until about 18 months later when I found myself to be the most experienced B-57 pilot in his wing and was designated as his “seeing eye dog”. Air Force regulations required every Wing Commander to have an experienced instructor pilot fly with him every time he flew. The 405^th Fighter Wing at that time had F-102, F-100 and B-57 aircraft assigned. Col. Yeager was current in all three types. Every time he flew in a B-57 I was assigned to fly with him in the back seat. He had his own B-57 which was not painted and had a ferry tank installed on the bomb door and the tip tank fuel tanks removed. I’ll swear his crew chief kept it waxed because it was the fastest B-57 I ever flew. He used this to visit his units sitting SIOP alert on Taiwan and the F-102s sitting alert in Saigon and his B-57 squadron in Vietnam. He did not use it to go to the Clark bomb range and practice to get combat qualified so he could go over to Vietnam and fly some combat missions in the B-57.  I flew as his instructor a few times and there was nothing I could teach him. He could make the aircraft be where he wanted it to be at any time. His scores were unbelievable for someone who had just checked out in the aircraft. Giving him a range test was a waste of time. I do not know if he ever found time to go to Vietnam and fly any combat missions but if he did I am sure he did a credible job.

Chuck was a great guy to fly with. He would share the stick time with me and we talked about flying techniques and I learned a lot from him. For instance, one day after coming off the range, I mentioned to him that I had made a minimum run landing on my last trip to Phan Rang and the tower was amazed that I could turn of at the approach end of the runway. We were making some practice landings at Clark and as he made the next landing he slowed to below normal approach speed on final and rounded out several feet above the runway. I was getting nervous and had my hands hovering over the controls ready to take over as I was supposed to. Just as I was about to have to take over from the most famous pilot in the world, he suddenly pushed the controls full forward and then immediately full back. The result was a sudden drop of about 6 feet followed immediately by a leveling off but not before the gear had impacted the runway rather firmly. He then lowered the nose and got on the brakes and stopped us in about 1000 feet, beating my best minimum run landing by about 500 feet. He then explained that he used the vertical drop and the slamming of the gear onto the runway to kill off the forward inertia.

He was not above practical jokes. One day we were going to Taiwan and escorting 3 F-100s that were to replace the ones on SIOP alert. They flew on our wing up to the island and we refueled and Chuck briefed the pilots who we would be escorting back to Clark. One of the pilots, a very inexperienced one, had a question and asked how slow they would have to go to stay on the wing of the bomber. Chuck, with a twinkle in his eye, said don’t worry about it. We took off first and the fighters were to take off at 10 second intervals. As we climbed out, at a pretty high angle, the fighters caught up with us by using their afterburners. When they came out of afterburner, they dropped back rapidly. The Yeager Racer had no external fuel tanks, was waxed, and had lots of power. The fighters had two 350 gallon external tanks and could not keep up with us without afterburner. They used their burners a couple of times to catch up with us and then realized that if they kept doing that they would not have enough fuel to reach Clark. They were not about to call for Col. Yeager to slow his bomber down so the fighters could stay with him. After Chuck and I landed at Clark, he waited outside his office until he saw the 3 fighters come in to land. He had an evil grin on his face.

Chuck was not perfect and I was a witness one time when he did something stupid. It was Christmas of 1967 and the Bob Hope Show had been in Vietnam entertaining the troops. They were on their way back to the States and were to stop at Clark AB and put on a last show. They were coming from Vietnam on a C-130 and Chuck Yeager put on a mission to go out over the South China Sea and escort him in to Clark. Chuck briefed our mission, which consisted of 2 F-100s, 2 F-4s, 2 F-102s, and 2 B-57s. Chuck was leading in the F-100 flight. The briefing was very brief as Chuck respected our professionalism and did not think he had to spell out every detail. I was lead in the B-57 flight which was number 7 and 8. My wingman was a new guy who did not know how to make a formation takeoff so I let him lead on the takeoff and then I took the lead.

We got joined up as two flights of four and proceeded out over the South China Sea at about 20,000 feet. Radar was giving us vectors to intercept the C-130 and at about 60 miles Chuck said “I have a tally. I don’t need any more vectors.” I strained my eyes and even though I prided myself on my exceptional eyesight, I did not spot the C-130 until about 40 miles. And he was at least10 years older than me! We joined up on the C-130 as briefed, the F-100s and the F-4s on the left wing and the F-102s and B-57s on the right. We were in four ship echelon which is a nervous formation because every small move of the ones closest to the lead is magnified as it reaches the end. After we got into reasonably stable flight, Bob Hope got on the radio and said “Hey guys, my camera man wants you all to line up on the right side and slowly pass so he can get a good pan shoot.” Chuck said “OK. We are going to echelon right.” My flight started moving out to make room for the other flight and Chuck’s flight started moving from the left wing to the right wing of the C-130 while changing from a left echelon to a right echelon. This complicated move was made with no problems as we were all fighter pilots. When we were established in a long and very snaky echelon, we accelerated and made a slow pass of the C-130. After we were past Bob Hope came back on the radio and said “That was great, guys, and my cameraman wants you to do it one more time”. I expected Chuck to call for speed brakes to slow us down to drop back behind the C-130. Instead, for some reason he elected for an S turn to do that. He said “OK. Coming 30 degrees right” and rolled into a 30 degree bank right. Mass panic!! It is a great risk to roll into a two ship echelon in close formation. It is an almost calamity to roll into a four ship echelon. It is a disaster to roll into an eight ship echelon. There is no way to slow an aircraft fast enough to stay inside the turn on a sharp turn into an echelon. My first instinct was to break right but I remembered the green guy on my wing and was afraid he would not get out of my way. I saw the F-102s next to me go straight up and decided to go down. I pushed over to about minus 3 Gs and ended up going straight down. I saw the F-4s had done the same. When it was all over, we had 8 aircraft scattered all over the sky. Chuck realized he had made a big boo-boo and said “If you find somebody, join up and go home.” That was the only stupid thing I ever saw Col. Chuck Yeager do.

I had refused to take credit for my missions over North Vietnam so as to shorten my tour so I stayed for the full two years of an accompanied tour. At the end of two years, I volunteered to extend for another year. That decision was delegated to the Deputy Wing Commander and he refused my request. He said he had heard stories that I was getting “Combat Happy”. I asked his permission to see the Wing Commander and he could not refuse me. Before my appointment with Col. Yeager, I prepared myself. Col. Yeager was not the best person when it came to paperwork. He had rather be flying and left most of the details of his command to his subordinates. I talked to some of them and discovered that he was unaware that the 8 T-33s on the base that currently was under the Base Flight Section was to be transferred to the 405^th Fighter Wing in 10 days. In addition, the Major, a friend of mine, who was running the T-33 section was rotating to the States in 4 days and he was the only qualified Instructor Pilot and Functional Test Pilot. With this information I went into my meeting with Col. Yeager confident that I held all the cards. I was right. I proposed that I get checked out in two days in the T-33 as an IP and FCF pilot and would run the T-33 section as well as functioning as an Instructor in the B-57. He had no other options and agreed to my proposal. In addition he agreed that after I had the T-33 Section running smoothly with enough staff pilots checked out to fill its mission, I could go over to Vietnam and fly combat missions at my will. I worked directly for the Deputy Wing Commander and Col. Yeager was the endorser on my Efficiency Report.

Chuck Yeager was a true “pilot’s pilot” and commanded the respect of everyone who came in contact with him. He respected the people who worked for him and they would have followed him anywhere. As an example of how he respected professional pilots, one day there was an accident on the runway at Clark and an F-102 was off the runway and on fire about 3000 feet from the approach end. I was airborne in a T-33 and just returning from a target mission. When I requested landing instructions, the tower told me the runway was closed. I told them if I could not land in the next 15 minutes I would have to divert to Subic Bay Naval Base. Col. Yeager, who was at the scene, had a radio in his staff car and said “Is that you, Ed?” When I said yes he said “Tower, he can land. Ed, land it short.” I made a short field landing on the first 50 ft. of the runway, using my secret trim trick, where I trimmed full nose down just before touchdown so I got more lift from the horizontal tail and could land about 6 knots slower than normal. The last time I saw him was at an air show at Nellis when he was flying his P-51 Glorious Glennis.