RIP Chuck Yeager
 

Certainly on the short list of greatest American heros. RIP Chuck.

God bless.

According to Yeager, 90% of the aerial combat kills in WWII came from 11% of the pilots. Almost without exception, they were rural kids raised with guns and hunting.

Original badass

Chuck Yeager, Bob Hoover, Neil Armstrong...Heaven's got a great Ready Room!

Rip General Yeager.
By the way, his book is a great read.

Padraig

It is interesting . huh ? I believe that they possessed some innate skill , sense or co-ordination that a lot of us don't have .
I remember when I had to do my 3 years of military service no matter what I did I was a shockingly poor marksman. Meanwhile , guys who had never changed a light bulb in their life , couldn't ride a pedal bike or knew the difference between 'to and too' , 'there and their' or 'then and than' could consistently hit the center of the target.
Used to drive me nutz .

I talked with Mr. Hoover at the EAA show in Oshkosh years ago, what a great person and extremely talented pilot.

I got to meet (and stand next to Bob Hoover) in a receiving line at the Portland Rose Festival Airshow in ~1990. I had first seen him flying the yellow North American P-51 Mustang in Florida ~1968 and he was a hero of mine. Good book too: Forever Flying