Yeager- Last time for fast flying feat

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier Saturday for what he said was the last time, more than a half-century after he became the first person to accomplish the feat.

Yeager, 79, split the air with a sonic boom as he opened an air show that drew thousands of fans to the desert base. Yeager took an F-15 Eagle to just over 30,000 feet on his last supersonic flight, capping a 60-year career.

Edwards test pilot Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine was in the back seat as the plane reached Mach 1.45, or nearly 1 1/2 times the speed of sound.

"I was standing in the hangar when Gen. Yeager flew by," said Jennifer Thompson, 16, of Martinez. "He shook the whole hangar. It was really cool."

After completing the hour-long flight, the retired Air Force brigadier general taxied the plane under an archway of water gushing from two Edwards fire trucks in an Air Force tradition, base spokeswoman Leigh Anne Bierstine said.

The plane's nose was painted with the words "Glamorous Glennis," named after Yeager's wife. It was the name he gave the orange, bullet-shaped Bell X-1 rocket plane that Yeager used to break the sound barrier for the first time on Oct. 14, 1947 on a flight over the Mojave Desert. The flight was depicted in the movie "The Right Stuff."

Yeager's aircraft was joined by a second F-15 piloted by friend and colleague Joe Engle, a 70-year-old former NASA astronaut and retired major general.

"This is a fun day for us because we get to fly good airplanes and do something we've loved to do for some time," Yeager said shortly before the flight.

Yeager announced earlier this year that the supersonic flight would be his last, although he intends to continue flying slower aircraft.

"Now is a good time," Yeager told Bierstine before the flight. "I've had a heck of good time and very few people get exposed to the things I've been exposed to. I'll keep on flying P-51s and light stuff, but I just feel its time to quit."

Yeager's first cracking of the sound barrier was the crowning achievement in a career that spanned six decades, including service in World War II and Vietnam.

Yeager said he considered it "a waste of time" to be scared during any of his flights.

"If you can't do anything about the outcome of something, forget it," he said. "Instead you better concentrate on staying alive where you are."