Essay
Aloft With Chuck Yeager, Testy Pilot
Gen. Chuck Yeager, left, takes Post reporter Del Quentin Wilber for a leisurely spin over Lake Tahoe in an Aviat Husky 60 years after piloting the first supersonic flight.
(By Richard Wisdom For The Washington Post)
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Saturday, October 13, 2007; Page C01
GRASS VALLEY, Calif.
I am standing on the tarmac of a small airstrip in this Northern California town on a recent crisp morning, awaiting the arrival of Chuck Yeager.
"General?" I ask eagerly as the 84-year-old approaches me. "General Yeager?"
"God damn it, quit being so shovy," he says, eyeing the microphone in my hand. "If you don't take that goddamn thing and quit sticking it in my face, I'm going to throw you off the field."
I smile inside. This is going to be an awesome day.
I am here to fly with Yeager, history's top test pilot -- the aviation legend who broke the sound barrier 60 years ago Sunday in a rocket plane that now hangs in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. As a newly minted pilot (I got my license in April), I can't believe my luck. This is like a Little Leaguer getting to hit batting practice with Hank Aaron or a novice cellist playing a duet with Yo-Yo Ma.
All because of a throwaway line in an interview about a month earlier.
"You still fly much?" I had asked.
"Two or three times a week," Yeager said.
"Can I go flying with you?"
He was silent for a moment. "If you pay for the gas."
I'm not sure he expected me to take him up on his offer -- to fly across the country and then drive three hours to this small airport nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, near his home. A wad of gas money bulges in my pocket.
