Yeager an autobiography reviews

Gerald McRaney. Dominick A. Pisano ,. Robert Van Der Linden ,. Frank H. Winter ,. Bob Cardenas ,. Bob Hoover ,. Jack Russell. Dale Reed ,. Darlene Lister ,. Chuck Yeager Foreword ,. John Nash Introduction. Jacqueline Cochran ,. Floyd Odlum Collaborator ,. Chuck Yeager Introduction. David Cabela ,. In his life, Chuck Yeager accepted missions that many pilots refused to accept because of fear.

The reason for that is, Chuck knew about the machines that he flew more than anyone else. He also knew what to do to make them do what he wants to do. Sensible work yields more than hard work. Pages that tell the romantic story between Chuck Yeager and Glennis sound fantastic than most of the films and imaginary novels. Chuck meets Glennis for the first time in a Gymnasium at Oroville.

Pilots decorated their aeroplanes by painting those chosen names on the noses of their aeroplanes. Chuck was a spirited warrior. He loved dogfighting in the skies. He loved his duty in World War 2. He loved his duty in West Germany. He loved his duty in Korea and Vietnam. He never bothered about politics and other stuff. He loved flying, and he did it without questioning.

Nothing reflects his attitude more than his days in Pakistan. Chuck admits that he knew nothing about Pakistan or its history or anything. He had the qualities of a great soldier as well. The way he reacted to the Pakistani defeat in the India-Pakistan war defines his greatness. Indians kicked the Pakistani butts in every humiliating way possible in the war.

Admiring the adversary — only great soldiers have this quality. The way he dealt with the politics in the Airforce gives us many life lessons. What you say might get you enemies. Speaking your mind gets you people who love you for what you are. The story it says is fantastic than many imaginary novels out there. The man it speaks about is a real life hero.

The lessons it teaches are worthy. Man, what a fun ride this book was! I felt like I flew every flight with Yeager, and stood in tears next to him for his farewell salute. Halie Dale. Yeager's remarkable career in the Air Force serves as a profound source of inspiration for me. In this book, he maintains a refreshing humility, crediting his successes to luck and chance.

I aspire to achieve even a fraction of what he has accomplished in his life. David Readmont-Walker. Rollicking Robin - what a life! General Yeager is real-life living legend. Amazing achievements, attitude and guts. Truly made of the right stuff. Highly recommended. Author 1 book 2 followers. Chuck Yeagers story is so extreme that if you made it up nobody would believe you.

His attitude towards everything is refreshing and instructive and could best be described as pedal right though the metal. Paul Greenpage. Great yarns from one of the sharpest pilots of all time. What a life. Author 27 books 18 followers. If I could jump inside one person's head Being-John-Malkovich style and experience their entire life, beginning-to-end, without regard to anything but the sheer roller coaster thrill of it, I'd probably pick Chuck Yeager.

Granted, the guy's not dead yet. But unless he meets a truly horrendous end--eaten alive, say, by Bengal Tigers, while slow-roasting over a barbecue pit--I'd consider myself a truly lucky man to see everything he's seen and do everything he's done. Ripping through the sound barrier in a bullet-shaped orange rocket plane, battling Messerschmitts in the cold European skies, testing exotic aircraft of all shapes and sizes in the bleak Mojave desert, hunting and fishing and hiking the high Sierras, hooting and hollering with friends on crazy drunken misadventures--it all sounds too fun to be legal, and except for the hooting and hollering part, I haven't done any of it.

What's more, he lived the kind of life that people don't seem to believe in anymore, the life of the self-made man who rises from nothing, who picks himself up by his own bootstraps and succeeds through good ol' Yankee Doodle initiative, ability and gumption. One of the nice things about this book, though, is that he doesn't rub it in.

He's the first one to acknowledge how lucky he's been to live the life he's lived and live to tell about it. An upside-down-bolt on an airplane aileron, parachute shroud lines that almost burnt through after an ejection gone awry--any of these things could have ended this remarkable life long before old age, and he knows it. Beyond the good luck, though, he knew enough not to press his luck.

One realizes, reading this book, that Yeager's flying career's remarkable not because he took chances, but because he didn't get so cocky and full of himself that he took one chance too many. In the test pilot business, it's better to fade away than to burn out or up. I last read this when I was a kid, not long after it came out--I'd been blown away by "The Right Stuff" and was nuts about everything aviation-and-space related.

I don't think I've seen it in twenty years, but I've had a hankering to read it for a while now, so I picked it up, put down the boring weighty intellectual tomes I usually read, and ripped through it in a couple days, eagerly smuggling it into the bathroom at work to steal some pleasure out of the boring workday. I'll never live this life, never get a pilot's license--with my narcolepsy and my bad eyes, I probably shouldn't even have a driver's license--but thanks to this book I can live Chuck Yeager's life vicariously, for a couple days, anyway.

Loved the WWII dogfight scenes, and just about all of the action scenes for that matter. He certainly had guts, and I appreciate his long military service. The book was written like an autobiography with commentary from his wife and associates. That structure was brand new to me, and I didn't like it--made for lots of repetition and strange "Oh he was so amazing!

When his wife comments, some of it is really unsettling. She and Yeager were certainly candid, I'll give them that. She writes, for instance, that when fighter pilots were gone from home a lot, they most likely took advantage of the situation and "shacked up" with other women along the way. She advised fellow military wives, though, that as long as they ignored the conduct and convinced themselves it wasn't important, the marriage was fine.

Though Yeager thankfully doesn't go into detail about it, he confirms this free-for-all lifestyle several times. Seems like an awful way to live as husband and wife, but what really surprised me was that they even wrote about that at all, and unapologetically too.

Yeager an autobiography reviews

I guess he wasn't trying to portray himself as someone he wasn't, laying everything out on the table, warts and all, but it was definitely disturbing. I saw General Yeager speak at the Pacific Aviation museum and he was absolutely hilarious and that was what prompted my reading this book - that and I liked that movie The Right stuff - and my little brother is in the AF so I really enjoyed this book but I must admit that the parts I enjoyed the most were not about Yeager - they were about two extraordinary and unique women in his life - Pancho Barnes and Jackie Cochran.

I'm wondering if there are biographies of them because I couldn't get enough. I also found it interesting that while Yeager spoke so brilliantly about these two ladies, and painted such a vivid picture of their unique characters, I walked away from this book feeling as though his wife, Glennis was a stranger. Even the parts that were in 'her voice' from her writings and interviews etc left a colorless rendition of Yeager's longtime wife.

Sometimes the reading got a little too technical for the non aviator me, and I couldn't keep any of the airplane acronyms straight I didn't really expect to Ted Alling. This book moved me. It really is a must-read. Oh wait, he is still living too!! Other than being forced by circumstances to live apart from Glennis, I was happy as I ever was Rank didn't mean a whole helluva lot, except that I needed more money.

If they had decided to make me a general, my first question would've been: Do general get to fly? I wasn't a deep sophisticated person, but I lived by a basic principle: I did only what I enjoyed. I wouldn't let anyone derail me by promises of power or money into doing things that weren't interesting to me. That kept me real and honest. Jak Krumholtz.

So good. I grew up next to Wright field but didn't realize Yeager had tested planes here before the program moved to Edwards. I had an uncle who also tested planes there in the sixties and I really wondered if it overlapped at all. Yeager's calm under pressure is amazing. Upon landing a plane on a farm and hitting a chicken coop, smokehouse and coming to rest alongside the house's kitchen window where the wife was doing dishes he simply opened the canopy, smiled and said, "Morning ma'am, Can I use your telephone?

After being in a helicopter that went in a lake and having his head laid open down to bone he got tired of waiting for a General hiking nine miles to get help and set off with three other guys before dropping them four miles in and arriving just as the General was making the call for help. Instead of listening to only Yeager tell his story and toot his own horn, he's also had others give their perspective of the situation.

Littered throughout the book are perspectives from those he served with plus Glennis's side of the story. Probably junior high or high school. How it's written: The events of the biography are often written as if they are happening in real-time, which adds to the excitement. Just when you find yourself thinking "there's no way that's real", it follows up with another section written by Yeager's wife or a friend corroborating the experience from their own perspective.

If you still find yourself doubtful, most of the stories can be validated with internet searches. For example, the audio logs of Yaeger's wild X1A flight where he hit 2. The content is just as intense in the real audio logs as they are in the biographies retelling of events. What I Want to Remember: This book leaves me with a palpable sense of incompleteness within myself, one familiar to me.

It was the same feeling I had whenever I finished watching an adventure movie or reading an adventure book when I was young. I'm only 28 and I'm happy to say I've lived a life i'd call exciting, but Yaeger sets the bar unbelievably high. I will take on the challenge, renewed. Yeager is inspiring in its insistence that you chase what you enjoy.

The chase itself is not always enjoyable in fact, it often isn't enjoyable at all , but it's the best way to live true to yourself.