Aloft With Chuck Yeager, Testy Pilot

Yeager loves the Sierras. He points out the mountains, a dried-up river, the profusion of trees that cover the landscape. The sky is perfectly blue. The air is smooth, kind of like driving on a newly paved road.

"It sure is beautiful," he says.

We don't talk much during the hour-long flight. But I ask about flying, about how he managed to stay alive all these years.

He says he worked hard, learned as much about each plane as he could and was always thinking -- way ahead of his next maneuver.

I notice we are following Interstate 80. Yeager looks down and says that is where we would land if our engine croaks.

"We would try to pick our way between the cars," he says.

I have heard that advice before, but I am impressed that a guy who flew experimental planes through the upper reaches of the atmosphere continues to follow roads as a safety precaution. I ask if he has any tips for inexperienced aviators like myself, hoping for a gem I can take back to my pilot friends. ( "Well, you know, guys, Chuck Yeager told me . . . ")

"The only thing you need to know is that you can't do anything with an airplane that hasn't already been done," he replies. "That includes making a smoking hole" in the ground.

A few moments later, I am looking out the window at Lake Tahoe and snow-capped mountains. Yeager says he has spotted a forest fire on the horizon. I can't see it until I squint against the sun. The old pilot still has better than 20-20 vision.

Yeager loves to fly. He wrote in his autobiography that he doubted there were many other pilots "who loved to fly as much as I did. . . . My feet touched the ground just long enough to climb out of one airplane" and into another.

I wonder what it will mean for him to give it up, and that day is fast approaching. That is why I am so shocked when he says he "can walk away from airplanes tomorrow and never miss it."

I don't believe him. I wouldn't believe him even if I thought it was true.