Tech History Made on February 13, 1923

Today we celebrate a man special to myself and my wife, Chuck Yeager. I was born in WV and she was born and raised there. Today in 1923 Charles Elwood Yeager was born in WV, he went on to be the first man ever to fly faster than the speed of sound. Yeager joined the US Army Air Corps when he was 18, he was a fighter pilot at the end of World War II. He took down 12 enemy planes total during the his years in the war, 5 in one dog fight alone. After the war he was a flight instructor and then became a test pilot. In October of 1947 as a test pilot he flew the Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound. He did it despite broken ribs he had received several days before in a horse riding accident. Some say others broke the sound barrier before Yeager, even if they did he went on to break many more speed and altitude records. We will remember his records every time we go home, our flight always ends at Yeager Airport.