Check Out Yeager: An Autobiography Drafted By Chuck Yeager Distributed In Electronic Text

this years ago but still remember it fondly, If I could jump inside one person's head BeingJohnMalkovich style and experience their entire life, beginningtoend, without regard to anything but the sheer roller coaster thrill of it, I'd probably pick Chuck Yeager.
Granted, the guy's not dead yet, But unless he meets a truly horrendous endeaten alive, say, by Bengal Tigers, while slowroasting over a barbecue pitI'd consider myself a truly lucky man to see everything he's seen and do everything he's done.


Ripping through the sound barrier in a bulletshaped orange rocket plane, battling Messerschmitts in the cold European skies, testing exotic aircraft of all shapes and sizes in the bleak Mojave desert, hunting and fishing and hiking the high Sierras, hooting and hollering with friends on crazy drunken misadventuresit all sounds too fun to be legal, and except for the hooting and hollering part, I haven't done any of it.


What's more, he lived the kind of life that people don't seem to believe in anymore, the life of the selfmade man who rises from nothing, who picks himself up by his own bootstraps and succeeds through good ol' Yankee Doodle initiative, ability and gumption.
One of the nice things about this book, though, is that he doesn't rub it in, He's the first one to acknowledge how lucky he's been to live the life he's lived and live to tell about it, An upsidedownbolt on an airplane aileron, parachute shroud lines that almost burnt through after an ejection gone awryany of these things could have ended this remarkable life long before old age, and he knows it.


Beyond the good luck, though, he knew enough not to press his luck, One realizes, reading this book, that Yeager's flying career's remarkable not because he took chances, but because he didn't get so cocky and full of himself that he took one chance too many.
In the test pilot business, it's better to fade away than to burn out or up,

I last read this when I was a kid, not long after it came outI'd been blown away by "The Right Stuff" and was nuts about everything aviationandspace related.
I don't think I've seen it in twenty years, but I've had a hankering to read it for a while now, so I picked it up, put down the boring weighty intellectual tomes I usually read, and ripped through it in a couple days, eagerly smuggling it into the bathroom at work to steal some pleasure out of the boring workday.
I'll never live this life, never get a pilot's licensewith my narcolepsy and my bad eyes, I probably

shouldn't even have a driver's licensebut thanks to this book I can live Chuck Yeager's life vicariously, for a couple days, anyway.
Yeager: an Autobiography, General Chuck Yeagerwith Leo Janos,,pages, ISBN, Dewey,, LibraryofCongress TL

free online:
sitelink org/details/yeageraut

See also
A Tribute to Chuck Yeager
sitelink org/achiever/gene

and Wikipedia:
sitelink wikipedia. org/wiki/ChuckY

Trivia:
sitelink goodreads. com/trivia/work

This book moved me, From General Yeager's humble West Virginia upbringing to getting shot down in WWamp evading the Germans, breaking the speed barrier, helping train NASA pilots, fighting in Vietnam and his UNREAL wife raising the family.
It really is a mustread, Oh wait, he is still living too!!

LIVINGLEGEND

"He was, without question, the best pilot this country ever produced" Dick Frost

"If you love the hell out of what you're doing, you're usually pretty good at it, and you wind up making your own breaks.
Other than being forced by circumstances to live apart from Glennis, I was happy as I ever was, . . Rank didn't mean a whole helluva lot, except that I needed more money, If they had decided to make me a general, my first question would've been: Do general get to fly I wasn't a deep sophisticated person, but I lived by a basic principle: I did only what I enjoyed.
I wouldn't let anyone derail me by promises of power or money into doing things that weren't interesting to me,
That kept me real and honest, " Gen. Chuck Yeager

Chuck Yeager grew up poor facing hardships and personal tragedies, but his family provided for his necessities through a strong work ethic and the tough times were put in the rearview mirror.
When he started school he was seated alphabetically noting:“I sat in the back in the daydreamers row with the other Ys, ”. He professed that his dreams were not about flying, but like a fish to water he landed in aviation, Full of ambition and gifted with keen eyesight he literally soared to uncharted territory with success following his exhaust trail,

He was self motivated, consumed by aviation to the point that there was nothing he world rather do than fly a plane, Although he lacked a college education Yeager was so intrigued by every aspect of aviation including engineering that throughout life he remained his best mechanic, The WWII ace and Vietnam commander of,is best remembered for being the first test pilot to break the sound barrier, Dedicated to serving his country he rose to become an Air Force general, The man with “the right stuff” was presented Collier Trophy by President Truman, the Harmon International Trophy by President Eisenhower and the Peacetime Congressional Medal of Honor by President Ford.


The autobiography is just as much a testament to Yeagers wife Glennis, whose name prominently graced his aircraft, In short order his young bride became a mother of four constantly moving from one remote airbase to another, With the understanding that her own gifts and talents may never be realized she gracefully accepted her lot in life, As a role model for military spouses she deserved her own award,

Yeagers life story including Operation Golden Trout is a great historical account,

This is by far the most exciting nonfiction book I've ever read, Yeager's whole life is an absurdity, so much so that even ifof the book is hyperbolic lies, the other truthfulwould remain one of the most fascinating lives ever lived.
That being said, I don't thinkof the book is made up,

How it's written:
The events of the biography are often written as if they are happening in realtime, which adds to the excitement.
Just when you find yourself thinking "there's no way that's real", it follows up with another section written by Yeager's wife or a friend corroborating the experience from their own perspective.
If you still find yourself doubtful, most of the stories can be validated with internet searches, For example, the audio logs of Yaeger's wild XA flight where he hit,Mach can be found on youtube, The content is just as intense in the real audio logs as they are in the biographies retelling of events,

What I Want to Remember:
This book leaves me with a palpable sense of incompleteness within myself, one familiar to me.
It was the same feeling I had whenever I finished watching an adventure movie or reading an adventure book when I was young, I'm onlyand I'm happy to say I've lived a life i'd call exciting, but Yaeger sets the bar unbelievably high, I will take on the challenge, renewed, Yeager is inspiring in its insistence that you chase what you enjoy, The chase itself is not always enjoyable in fact, it often isn't enjoyable at all, but it's the best way to live true to yourself, Great yarns from one of the sharpest pilots of all time, What a life. General Chuck Yeager, the greatest test pilot of them all the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, . . the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a propdriven PMustang, . . the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot flyboys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff,



Now Chuck Yeager tells his whole incredible life story with the same "wideopen, full throttle" approach that has marked his astonishing career.
  What it was really like enaging in doordie dogfights over Nazi Europe,   How after being shot over occupied France, Yeager somehow managed to escape,   The amazing behindthescenes story of smashing the sound barrier despite cracked ribs from a riding accident days before,



The entire story is here, in Yeager's own words, and in wondeful insights from his wife and those friends and colleagues who have known him best.
  It is the personal and public story of a man who settled for nothing less than excellence, a oneofakind portrait of a true American hero, When asked which five people I would invite to a dinner party, Yeager is one of them, His courage and determination to push the envelope is admirable, His passion for service is one of the reasons I also chose to serve in the Air Force, that is after watching The Right Stuff very young.
I still cant believe I passed on the opportunity to drive to Edwards AFB with my dad to meet Yeager, I guess at eight years of age we expect that opportunities will come around again, they often dont, My dad walked away with a memory of meeting his hero and a signed copy of this book, Darn!

This book is a must read regardless of your interest in aviation, the military lifestyle or historical events of the time, Yeager has so much to share, I also enjoyed the portions of the book written by Yeagers fellow servicemen, friends and wife, Glennis, Glenniss strength is definitely something I intended to mimic as a military spouse, Its not an easy job,

Im sure Ill read this book more than once, My favorite takeaway is when Yeager said, “unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda, For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing, ” At this time in my life I needed to be reminded of this, Thanks, Chuck! Fascinating story of the greatest pilot that ever existed, Yeager is immortalized in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff as well as the movie based on that book, The details of Chuck Yeager's life is inspirational and educational, Inspiring bc he is a role model of hard work, resiliency, and humility, Educational bc Yeager emphasizes that despite everyone calling him a natural pilot he disagrees and attributes his flying prowess to experience which comes from work, Yeager only claims his natural gift was great eyesight, which isn't a deal maker in flying,

What set Yeager apart was that he never stopped flying, He truly loved to fly and flew longer than any military pilot, Chuck Yeager is truly from the old school, He was a simple, humble West Virginia farm boy with no formal education which was looked on with disdain from the military and NASA brass, He made up for it with talent, What's a present day takeaway is how everyone has a college degree today and how worthless they are, As if a piece of paper from college is a testament to someone's talent or intelligence, Not anymore today. Talent is what counts and a 'diploma' is hardly an accurate assessment of that, What counts is experience and Yeager states what kept him alive in all his flight hours more than anyone in the military to this day was his experience.
Yeager knew everything there was to know about the airplane mechanics and equipment, Like Ken Miles in "Ford vs Ferarri", What set Chuck Yeager and Ken Miles apart is not that they were just a fantastic pilot and driver but they knew there equipment taking them to a higher performance level.


If "Maverick" from Top Gun were a real person he would be Chuck Yeager, .