Chuck Yeager, World War II ace, daring test pilot has died at age 97.
The legendary pilot and retired brigadier general became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound on Oct. 14, 1947.
The historic test pilot portrayed in the movie "The Right Stuff."
The flight in the Bell X-1, which saw him travel to 700 miles per hour, launched the Space Age. Yeager set another speed record on Dec. 12, 1953, by flying two-and-a-half times the speed of sound in a Bell X-1A.
Yeager was born on February 13, 1923, in Myra, W.Va. His family moved to Hamlin, a town of 400 people when he was five. He graduated in 1941 and enlisted in the Army Air Corps that September.
In 1985, President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award.
(Left to right) Captain Charles 'Chuck' Yeager, Major G Lundquist and Captain J Fitzger. Yeager, the fastest man on earth is seen below in the cockpit of the Air Force Bell X-I supersonic research plane, in which he broke the sound barrier.
