A Coloradan's adventure with Chuck Yeager, the 'Babe Ruth of aviation'
News of Chuck Yeager's death stirs memories for Dustin Schaefer of Georgetown, who as a 5-year-old "aviation nut" enjoyed an airborne adventure with the test-pilot legend who first broke the sound barrier.
"I wanted to be a pilot," says Schaefer, now 41. "I was the kid that loved to go to the airport and watch the planes take off and land."
When Schaefer met Yeager, "I thought he was just an older gentleman who flew airplanes. And now I know he's pretty much the Babe Ruth of aviation."
Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager died Dec. 7 in Los Angeles at the age of 97. The cause of death was not immediately reported.
After joining the Army Air Forces during World War II straight out of high school and shooting down at least a dozen German planes in combat, Yeager transitioned to the new U.S. Air Force and became a test pilot.
On Oct. 14, 1947, Yeager flew an experimental rocket plane, the Bell X-1, faster than the speed of sound (662 mph at 40,000 feet altitude), becoming the first pilot to do so and survive. Years later he was the first to fly at 2-1/2 times the speed of sound.
His daring earned him a spot in both the book and movie versions of "The Right Stuff" about the early days of the U.S. space program, with author Tom Wolfe calling Yeager "the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff."
It was 36 years ago that Schaefer had his encounter with the legend -- then a retired Air Force general -- at a California desert airfield. Dustin's father, Malcolm Schaefer, a now-retired commercial pilot, had flown Yeager on business trips and they became friends, and Yeager had invited the family to visit for the weekend.
Yeager at the time was flying a tiny two-seater Falcon-XP ultralight aircraft. Like his history-making X-1, Yaeger's Falcon was named "Glamorous Glennis." He offered to take the boy and his mother up for a spin.
"My mom was a little worried," Dustin Schaefer recalls. "She looked at my dad and whispered, 'Do you think he's qualified? And my dad just [nodded and said,] 'Yeah. Yeah."
So Yeager "loaded me up in the plane, took me up, and I just thought it was a cool thing. ... What I didn't realize was I was flying with a true pioneer and legend.
"It wasn't a test flight," he adds, choking up at the memory. "It was just Gen. Yeager being a great man."
“We lost an icon in the aviation industry,” adds Schaefer's dad. “ … They broke the mold. There was never anybody that I’ve ever met like him.”