Chuck Yeager dies

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Chuck Yeager, a former U.S. Air Force officer who became the first pilot to break the speed of sound, died Monday. He was 97.

Blue Skies sir.

www.nbcnews.com

Chuck Yeager, Air Force officer who broke speed of sound, dies at 97

The history-making pilot helped "set our nation’s dreams soaring into the jet age and the space age," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
 
RIP

He was very much one with the "Right Stuff"................
 
One of my childhood heros - RIP old chap.

'Right Stuff' indeed.
 
Perhaps we should also remember the thousands of engineers and technicians, without whom he would never have been able to achieve any of those things.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Perhaps we should also remember the thousands of engineers and technicians, without whom he would never have been able to achieve any of those things.
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If you could list them for me I'll make sure and remember them when they die. Meantime if it's ok with you I'll just pay my respects to this one guy who went there and did it.
 
Steep said:
If you could list them for me I'll make sure and remember them when they die. Meantime if it's ok with you I'll just pay my respects to this one guy who went there and did it.
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Lemme see.... there was Snuffy, Al, Leo... Little Moe with the gimpy leg, Cheeks, Boney Bob, Cliff...
 
There was also Peter, Paul and Mary (in parts) as well as Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Comment on hero worship by someone called Efe Otokiti: "We end up projecting our loftiest ideals of character onto these people and forget that whether its Mahatma Gandhi or MLK, they were always just human beings."

... The Problem With Hero Worship | Articles | Chief Human Resources Officer | Innovation Enterprise (theinnovationenterprise.com)
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Human beings who did heroic things in some cases. One can appreciate that without being a hero worshipper, I would suggest.
 
moggi1964 said:
Human beings who did heroic things in some cases. One can appreciate that without being a hero worshipper, I would suggest.
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The point of the spear is nothing without the shaft behind it. In the same way: the pilot is only special if the thousands who built and prepared the aircraft are special too.

Perhaps we should praise the spear and not the point.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
The point of the spear is nothing without the shaft behind it. In the same way: the pilot is only special if the thousands who built and prepared the aircraft are special too.

Perhaps we should praise the spear and not the point.
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You made your point earlier but I suppose if you keep repeating it eventually someone may praise it. Keep going,......
 
moggi1964 said:
You made your point earlier but I suppose if you keep repeating it eventually someone may praise it. Keep going,......
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There seems to be no point in discussion where you're concerned, so to prevent pointless argument I've put you on ignore.
 
In this specific case - I only notice one person in the cockpit. Although others may have done exceptional work that allowed him to pilot this craft, he was the one at the VERY SHARP END. If it went wrong he died - no-one else. Thats why he had the right stuff.
 
Diving Pete said:
Thats why he had the right stuff.
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That's one point of view but an alternative is that all such events are the result of massive amounts of co-operation. Suggesting that the man in the cockpit is in some way better or more important than the people who mined the metal, made the fuel, designed and built the aircraft, created the runway and all the myriad of other work that was necessary to achieve that particular result is just plain wrong.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
That's one point of view but an alternative is that all such events are the result of massive amounts of co-operation. Suggesting that the man in the cockpit is in some way better or more important than the people who mined the metal, made the fuel, designed and built the aircraft, created the runway and all the myriad of other work that was necessary to achieve that particular result is just plain wrong.
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I gotta say, I know where you are coming from. All 12 of the men that walked on the moon made a point of praising the entire 400,000 or so people that worked on the Apollo program.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
That's one point of view but an alternative is that all such events are the result of massive amounts of co-operation. Suggesting that the man in the cockpit is in some way better or more important than the people who mined the metal, made the fuel, designed and built the aircraft, created the runway and all the myriad of other work that was necessary to achieve that particular result is just plain wrong.
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Respectfully I 100% disagree with your viewpoint.

All of the people mentioned above excelled in a way that very few ever did & also put their lives on the line to back it up.
Thats the difference between a Hero / leader and the rest.

No where has it been said that the people behind them did not also play a part. The point I'm making is that there are very few people that would have done their exploits or were capable of doing them.

Those people truly were a step up.
 
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To explain more - Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Whittle, Henry Ford, Erno Rubik, Robert Louis Stephenson, etc, etc.. All of these people have made a significant contribution to society in general and I'm sure also had 100's / 1000's of people behind them BUT they didn't have their lives on the line at the crunch.
 
Diving Pete said:
Those people truly were a step up.
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Whereas I think they were people well versed in their tasks but who were in no way better than any other person involved in that objective. I think it's because I see everyone being exactly as important as everyone else whereas you appear to be an elitist and we have seen in the last 100 years just where such thinking leads.
 
c
AndrewFlannigan said:
Whereas I think they were people well versed in their tasks but who were in no way better than any other person involved in that objective. I think it's because I see everyone being exactly as important as everyone else whereas you appear to be an elitist and we have seen in the last 100 years just where such thinking leads.
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nope can't agree with you there either - These 'heroes' did things that others were not capable of doing or were well beyond the limits of what could reasonably be expected of someone doing. If people who excel are considered 'elites' then how are we going to get to the stars if we follow mediocrity...
 
Diving Pete said:
how are we going to get to the stars if we follow mediocrity...
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I can only ask why any sane person would want to "get to the stars", when many children are starving, even in the planet's wealthiest countries? It's elitism that directly causes the imbalance of wealth and the suffering of so many people.
 
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