HOMER HICKAM: Chuck Yeager Was A Hero’s Hero. “The World War II fighter pilot who broke the sound barrier and lived for the thrill of punching into the air was the man every hero wanted to be. . . . But perhaps the most important thing about Yeager, in terms of why he was chosen to fly the X-1, was that he knew generators, pumps and pressure regulators. He knew how they worked, he knew how to take them apart and he knew how to put them back together. He knew them because he worked with his daddy on gas wells in the hills of West Virginia that used machinery similar to the ones used in jet and rocket engines. Even though he didn’t have an engineering degree, Yeager knew what he had to know to dig into the guts of modern aircraft and rockets and be confident enough to be dropped from the belly of a bomber, light the engine and fly with consummate skill — not only faster than the speed of sound but straight into history. . . . In that, he was a lot like our country during the years following World War II, an era when men like Yeager were not afraid to try and die and laugh while they were doing it.”