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Up for sale "Bell X-1" Chuck Yeager Hand Signed 3X5 Card. This item is certified authentic by Yeager Inc and comes with their Certificate of
Authenticity.
ES-1272
Charles Elwood 13, 1923 – December 7, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in 1947 became the first pilot in history
confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound in level flight. Yeager's career began
in World War II as
a private in the United States Army,
assigned to the Army Air Forces in
1941.[a] After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in
September 1942, he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted
to the rank of flight officer (the
World War II Army Air Force version of the Army's warrant officer),
later achieving most of his aerial victories as a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot on the Western Front,
where he was credited with shooting down 11.5 enemy aircraft (the half credit
is from a second pilot assisting him in a single shootdown). On October 12,
1944, he attained "ace in a day" status,
shooting down five enemy aircraft in one mission. After the war, Yeager became
a test pilot and flew many types of aircraft, including experimental
rocket-powered aircraft for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
Through the NACA program, he became the first human to officially break
the sound barrier on
October 14, 1947, when he flew the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m),
for which he won both the Collier and Mackay trophies in 1948. He then went on to break several
other speed and altitude records in the following years. Yeager later commanded
fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia during
the Vietnam War. In recognition of his achievements and the
outstanding performance ratings of those units, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1969 and inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in
1973, retiring on March 1, 1975. Yeager's three-war active-duty flying career
spanned more than 30 years and took him to many parts of the world, including
the Korean War zone and the Soviet Union during
the height of the Cold War. Throughout his life, he flew
more than 360 different types of aircraft.
