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Summary: Great Book About A Great Man
Review: Everyone should read this book. It's interesting to see that Yeager's starts are similar to those of Larry Bird. (see Bird's autobiography Drive)
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Summary: Yeager
Review: Having had the opprotunity to meet Chuck Yeager,To say the least, was a thrill for me. The experience prompted me to read his autobiography. I will say that it is far and away the best non fiction that I have read to date. Having had the opprotunity to meet this "Living Legend" a second time was an incredible feeling for me......after learning about how he had cheated death on many occasions and literally outran sound with a broom handle....you will have to read the book to find out what I talking about....Mr. Yeager is an American Hero in every sense of the word! I will sum this up in three words. READ THE BOOK!
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Summary: Ignorant of Fear, Gentleman of the Skies
Review: I was inspired by General Yeager's feats, like most post WWII brats, after seeing Philip Kaufman's "The Right Stuff." However, I became ever more impressed and rejoiced after reading his biography. It carried me right to his cockpit and flew me through Mach 1, 2 and 3 with deafening passion.Chuck Yeager represents that generation of Americans who felt that making history was cooler than making money. He risked his life believing in what was best for his country without an ounce of hesitation. He enjoyed taking chances and learned from each flight to prepare him better for the next. On top of all that, General Yeager is a patient, hard-working, honest, charismatic, altruistic, relentless, loving, humorous, and controversy-free man. The anecdotes shared with Glennis Yeager and those of colleagues and friends help sharpen the description of facts and sprinkle humor. He is the true father of modern aviation.
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Summary: A lifetime of aviation excellence...
Review: If you love first-hand combat accounts, this is the book for you. If you want to learn about the second golden age of aviation, this is the book for you. If you want to see a shining example of endurance, bravery, skill, and incredible luck, this is the book for you. Chuck Yeager proves that there are still some old, bold pilots around with style, dignity, and flair. If you love aircraft and aviation, you can't miss "Yeager"!
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Summary: Balls Out!!!
Review: Legendary flying ace Chuck Yeager has put on paper not only his life, but his amazing character as well. Since I was a child I was told the stories of Chuck Yeager by my brothers.One of whom was an aviator himself, and was in awe of this man. When I read his autobiography, which is definitely one of the best books I've ever read, I felt a new kind of respect for the man. A man who was never given a college education, yet managed to be one of the greatest aviators and men in history. He overcame the odds more than a few times. What touched me most about this book was it's honesty.He never embellishes the truth, and tells it like it is, always. The book may not be the best articulated book in history, but that is because that is not Chuck's way. He recounts all the major events in aviation history with a style that reveals his passion, and his determination that if you are going to do something, do it right.Eloquently put by Chuck, do it balls out. I most enjoyed his manner in the book, fun loving without losing sight of himself, his demeanour is that of a mischievous brother who'll stand up for what he believes in, no matter what. This man is a role model and one of the world's finest heroes. Read the book and meet the man.
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Summary: General and Sergeant
Review: My carrier in the Air Force started as Engine Mechanic in early 1950. Then started flying in 1950 on c-54's, moved on to a new airplane, the Douglas Sky Master C-124 as a Flight Engineer and ended up with over 10,083 hours logged. Having read General Yeager's book, twice, I still enjoyed reading it again. You don't have to be cracy to fly, but it sure helps. At one time in Yuma,Arziona, with the help of a Pilot and an outside power unit, we started ALL 4 engines at the same time. Didn't have the nerve to do it again. Even climbed the propeler once to win a bet, didn't do that again either, my stomache like to have kill me. General Yeager, I salute you for a great book. Write another one so that I can relive some of your past as a Pilot
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Summary: Yeager
Review: Need to know the definition of stud? Read this book and there will be no doubt in your mind as to the meaning. A must read for those of us who are legends in our own minds and need to be brought back down to earth....without "augering in". Read it!
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Summary: Couldn't stop reading
Review: OK I couldn't stop reading. Spent several nights staying up too late reading this page-turner of a book. Yeager tells it like it is, in a delightful and fascinating manner. I'm a Navy brat, so I've experienced some of the things he has written about (i.e. living in military housing or missing my Dad when he was gone) his writing about pilots and the military life was right on.
Rating: 
Summary: Fasten your seat belts....
Review: Supposedly, Chuck Yeager has amassed a bad rap, but from his autobiography, it's hard to see why. The retired USAF General, who went from shooting down German jets in WWII to flying faster than sound before anybody else thought it possible, tells it like it is. While that won't engender warm feelings, Yeager was obviously a man even his rivals could trust. The General writes of his humble Virginian origins. Enlisting in the Army as a mechanic, Yeager moved to the pilot's seat through a program intended to put more non-com's into flight-duty. Yeager displays a true pilot's nostalgia of the days when he writes lovingly of the obsolete P-39's he flew from Oroville (half the P-39's built went to the Red AF under lend/lease). Getting to England by 1943, Yeager upgraded to the legendary P-51...only to get shot down by a German FW-190. Smuggled into neutral Spain and then repatriated, Yeager returned to his unit and then began shooting down German planes, including the Me-262, the first operational jet fighter. Describing the crude though effective jet, Yeager shows how his mechanic's training and senses made the crucial difference: the early jets, built for high-speed, were vulnerable when approaching their runays for landing. Because existing jet engines responded slowly and unpredictably - with one engine spooling up much faster than the other - Luftwaffe pilots who tried to speed away from threats a low speeds often got sucked into mysterious and uncontrollable rolls. It was thus in that vulnerable state that Yeager hunted the vaunted jets. After the war, and on the strength of his having been shot down, Yeager became a test pilot at the famed high-desert testing ground of Edwards AFB. Though a fighter pilot, it was again Yeager's mechanic's training that made the difference in his selection to pilot the supersonic X-1. Originally intended for flight by civilian pilots with high-pricetags, the X-1 was grabbed in 1947 by the newly formed US Air Force as a high-profile project whose success would set that service apart from the Army from which it had just been separated. Successfully taking the X-1 past the sonic barrier, and avoiding numerous would-be disasters, Yeager excelled as a fighter-pilot. Though rivals with test pilots in other services, it was with civilian pilots that Yeager reveals a true enmity, and for the period NASA pilots in particular. Paid for their work, these pilots were not likely to satisfy the minimal requirements of flight test - exploring and establish the outer boundaries of an airplane's performance. (Nor were they very good pilots, the General maintains, "proven" by the fatal mid-air collision between the B-70 and a NASA flown F-104 in 1965). Even the best civilian fliers are flawed pilots, exceling simply because of their readiness to test their flawed assumtpions, as "Wheaties" Welsh did at the controls of an F-100 prototype with a misdesigned vertical stabilizer. Leaving flight-test, Yeager eventually rose to command of a squadron of F-100, a plane revolutionary in that - for its pilots - it inaugurated both missiles and mid-air refueling, and was guaranteed to weed out "weak sisters". Yeager's adventures include stints commanding units in Europe during the early cold-war days, Vietnam and Pakistan during the 1970's, as well as more flight test. He flew with Jaqueline Cochrane, the rich aviatrix who left the scent of perfume in any plane she flew, chatted with Andrei Tupolev and MiG pilots, and flew MiG-15's flown to the west by defectors. Thruough it all, he rarely rises to being judgemental, though he lets history do it for him - like the way the public largely ignored him and other test-pilots while lavishing attention on Merury pilots whose scientific contributions to flight test were not as great. At the same time, his ire towards the political forces that inevitably stretched their tentacles out at flight test becomes too great to ignore - such as when one lackluster African American pilot becomes the Kennedy Administration's designated astronaut. "Yeager" is full of insights into the aviation's golden age as well as the Cold War, yet it remains one man's story, and like the Bell X-1, it's a story your strapped into until the end.
Rating:
Summary: One to read over and over
Review: The word around the campfire is that Chuck Yeager is real SOB. Fortunately, I heard this long after I'd read this book and decided he was anything but. I still question this "SOB" assessment. General Yeager signs books, answers fan mail and cracks great jokes. This is the Chuck Yeager that comes across in the pages of this book, which is undoubtedly one of the best aviation yarns ever written. Yeager had a way of being at the right place at the right time. Those places and times form the heart of this book, and the heart of the golden age of aviation itself. If there is a person most qualified to tell the story of how America transitioned from piston-fired aircraft into the supersonic jet age, Chuck is that person. Told in a loose, casual manner, the story whizzes along at mach speed, slowing only to allow "other voices" (friends, family, comrades) to further illustrate Chuck's highly adventurous life. The book can be very funny, as when Yeager describes "topping" a tree with his WWII trainer's wingtip; it can be suspenseful, as when Yeager and others describe his nearly fatal flight beyond Mach 2. And the book can be sad, as when he illustrates the dangers of flight testing by revealing that streets at Edwards Air Force Base were named after fallen test pilots. Of course, it's all old news now - some of the lore has even decayed into clichés. But the magic of this book is that the moment you pick it up and start reading, it all seems new again. Yeager bashers always seem to miss what this book hits on so well; it's not the things he did, it's the way he did them. This isn't the story of a war ace turned arrogant test pilot; this is the story of a country boy who inadvertently made a name for himself merely by doing what came naturally to him. We should all be so lucky.
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