Yeager: An Autobiography

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 prop-driven P-51 Mustang . . .the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff.

Now Chuck Yeager tells his whole incredible life story with the same "wide-open, full throttle" approach that has marked his astonishing career.  What it was really like enaging in do-or-die dogfights over Nazi Europe.  How after being shot over occupied France, Yeager somehow managed to escape.  The amazing behind-the-scenes 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 one-of-a-kind portrait of a true American hero.

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 prop-driven P-51 Mustang . . .the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff.

Now Chuck Yeager tells his whole incredible life story with the same "wide-open, full throttle" approach that has marked his astonishing career.  What it was really like enaging in do-or-die dogfights over Nazi Europe.  How after being shot over occupied France, Yeager somehow managed to escape.  The amazing behind-the-scenes 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 one-of-a-kind portrait of a true American hero.

Library Journal

People who know nothing else about aviation know that it was Chuck Yeager who broke the sound barrier. Those who have read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff also know he did it with broken ribs from a nocturnal horse race. Readers of this engrossing work will find these circumstances typical of the way Yeager has always done things. In matter-of-fact language that covers both suspenseful flying descriptions and high times with drunken flying buddies, Yeager holds one's attention with the same ease that he brought to research and test flying. There is understatement in his descriptions of combat flying over Europe, of family life and his displeasure over having to be gone so long, of the years in the California desert; and his confident tone enhances these and other reminiscences in what has to be the aviation literature event of the year, and a bonus for general readers, too. BOMC main selection. Mel D. Lane, Sacramento, Cal.