Three score, a decade and 8 years ago. Tomorrow....

[Clark Williams]

As long as you remember that they are human and filled with their own faults and foibles  heroes are important.

I have many I admire; all flawed but heroic.

One of these is  a man that 78-years ago on October 14th, after cracking 3-ribs the night before, crawled into an experimental prototype rocket and successfully transitioned from sub to sustained super sonic flight! He hit Mach 1.05 at 45,000 feet flying the Bell X-1 named Glamorous Glennis after his first wife.

At Edwards Air Force Base (formerly Murock AFB), Captain Charles Elwood Yeager, broke the sound barrier in 1947 on this date.

If you need a good read try Tom Wolf’s book The Right Stuff (the movie is okay but the book is better).

Yeager’s autobiography is also pretty good and covers his escape from NAZI  pursuit after  being shot down in WWII.

I spent time at Edwards in my days in the USAF and CANG. It is one of those places that simply drips history from everywhere. 

Clark

[Jim Sappington]

Thank you for this, Clark. Chuck Yeager is a hero of mine as well. A natural born “stick and rudder” man, he could fly just about anything with wings. During one mission over Germany he shot down 5 enemy aircraft making him an “Ace in a day”.  After the war he went on to become one of our top test pilots. By the time of his retirement, he had logged time as pilot in command of more than 350 aircraft. He is one of the greatest pilots of all time. 

Jim

On Oct 13, 2025, at 5:48 AM, Clark Williams <cla...@s-i-g-h.com> wrote:



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[Will Kramer]

Wow, these emails brought back some neat memories - it may have been back in the 80's when I attended a few air shows, and really enjoyed reading "The Right Stuff", and the movie.  I was amazed watching the fighter jets at high velocity, and more than once was I asked by the "MP's" at a couple of bases to please leave the area for my own safety!   Sometimes if I was driving north for an astronomy trip, I would divert across the high desert towards Edwards AFB and remember that "this is the land of the Right Stuff", and we even witnessed a space shuttle landing there one year.   In the movie, remember in the cantina when a young, cocky pilot asked, "What do I gotta do to get my picture on these walls"?   Yeager was the greatest!

Thanks,

Will 

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From: tvastr...@googlegroups.com <tvastr...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jim Sappington <jrsapp...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2025 12:33 PM
To: Clark Williams <cla...@s-i-g-h.com>
Cc: Tvastronomers <tvastr...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [TVAstro] Three score, a decade and 8 years ago. Tomorrow....

 

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[Cla...@s-i-g-h.com]

Something that is not known by everyone is that in the movie “The Right Stuff “ in the bar scene at Pancho’s there is a character named “Fred”. That character is a cameo played by General Yeager. 

I’ve been a lot of places on Edward’s. My specialty required access to some fun places. I’ve seen where Pancho’s stood. There is a big building there now. Because of some commander who in my opinion has no sense of history or humor. At least there was 40-years ago. Construction never stops at any base that utilizes technology. 

CW

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 15, 2025, at 08:43, Will Kramer <wil...@hotmail.com> wrote:



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[Clark Williams]

’78 I was teaching flying and doing commercial flying full time at Eagle Aviation at Long Beach Airport. There’s no drug on earth quite as powerful as flying. In my 3500 hours I believe I only said “What am I doing up here?” Three times. Otherwise as soon as my wheels stopped rolling I couldn’t wait to get back in the air! Nobody is going to ask so I’ll tell you about one time anyway!

On a flight from Long Beach to San Jose. The preflight weather from the weather service said I’d hit a ceiling at 800 feet and bust through to unrestricted visibility at 1500 for the rest of the trip. So I filed IFR to San Jose thinking how lucky I was. I hit the ceiling at about 600 feet and busted out at 2000. I got my hand off to Coast Approach and headed toward Gorman. I hit clouds just north of Burbank and the entire trip was IFR with head winds that kicked the living snot out of me. I’m talking about lab board off the lap and slammed back down kind of turbulence.My 2-hour 412 NM trip was stretched to 4 and a half hours. When I got about 50-miles from San Jose things got worse. My compass was spinning and the DG was doing 60-degree swings. To make things more gnarly as I entered my approach I was ahead of a 727 going into SJ. That’s right AHEAD of the 727. The 727 pilot was somewhat concerned as well. He kept asking where I was to which the tower replied that we were both doing about 4-kts ground speed and the separation was fine. I broke out of the clouds at just above the DH; needles still swinging. I looked up and there was no runway in sight! My needles are dead on so I’m on glide slope and descending at a reasonable rate. Then I remembered the swinging DG and when I looked to my left there was the airport sixty degrees off the port side. This aircraft doesn’t do sixty-degree cross wind landings—so now what? Plus the 727 pilot is getting nervous behind me. The tower asked me if I could make the second turnoff. I told him I’d make the first one. I powered back and let the aC drift off the center line. I could see that my ground speed was very slow and the runways at SJ are very wide. So I lined up with the first turn-off and landed width wise on the runway. The 727 pilot was frantically asking the tower "where’s that Piper!? I want out of this embedded thunderstorm!”. To which a calm and collected tower operator said: “He’s already cleared the runway; you are cleared to land." I tailed the follow-me to a tie down. And the driver was nice enough to chain me down. I just sat in the airplane and shook. But the next morning I couldn’t wait to get back in the air. The flight home was CAVU and wonderful!

I won’t bore everyone with the other two times. Besides I’m certain the USAF pilots and Naval aviators out there have better stories than mine. Dave NG has got to have some rotary wing stories too. It was nice to experience an embedded thunderstorm though—and live to tell about it. None was forecast but that’s the nature of weather and aviation:

“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”

Captain Alfred Gilmer Lamplugh, CBE, FRAeS, MIAeS, MCAI, FRGS

Clark

On Oct 15, 2025, at 16:18, Jim Sappington <jrsapp...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Clark, love that you are calling attention to Yeager and his legacy. As a newly minted private pilot in ‘78, The Right Stuff couldn’t have come out at a more opportune time for me. I remember reading it late into the night, after work and college, my then girlfriend, quite annoyed with me! Being non fiction, the book was so much more than the film but I still could not wait for the release. As you know, In those pre WWW, and social media days, all of the anecdotes and trivia were not “out there” before a film’s release as they often are now. But, I did recognize Yeager at the Happy Bottom Riding Club bar. While watching the film I remember telling my buddies, “that was Chuck Yeager!”

I was recently reading about the making of the film. Did you know that the first draft of the screenplay deleted Yeager’s story and character? I’m glad the director, Philip Kaufman fought to have him included and actually wrote another screenplay himself which was ultimately used for the film. 

Jim

On Oct 15, 2025, at 9:08 AM, Cla...@s-i-g-h.com wrote:

Something that is not known by everyone is that in the movie “The Right Stuff “ in the bar scene at Pancho’s there is a character named “Fred”. That character is a cameo played by General Yeager. 

[Jim Sappington]

What a coincidence, Clark! We likely shared the airspace a time or two, as I was a student at Long Beach Flyers (private pilot, 78 and aerobatic cert, 79).  

We were told LGB was the best place to learn since it was the busiest general aviation airport in the US. As a kid, I would ride my bike there from Lakewood and sit at the chain link fence at the end of runway 30 watching all of the activity. Though not nearly as harrowing or exciting as your story, I once had a nose wheel blowout on landing just as I was lowering it. This caused the 172 to "porpoise" a couple of times before I could get it settled.

I was a fairly green pilot at that time, so it got my heart pumping! 

I remember vividly an old poster hanging in the classroom with the caption:

"There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots". 

Jim

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