The French Engineers Just Shook Their Heads

July 20, 2013/Victoria Yeager

From Chuck Yeager: A couple years after I broke the sound barrier, someone forced the issue and General Boyd was forced to order me back to test pilot school to complete the standard and evaluation course. The instructors knew I was not an academic and couldn’t wait to fail me, the pilot who broke the sound barrier, gave me extra work, railed on me. If I failed this, I could kiss my test pilot career goodbye. Jack Ridley tutored me every night.

General Al Boyd

Towards the end of the course and just in time, General Boyd ordered me to go to France with him to test aircraft at the request of the French and the USAF Chief of Staff. Just in time, he ripped me out of that class. This is how he describes our time in France:

General Boyd said: “The French wanted our advice about their prototypes and which ones to put into production. Our Air Force Chief of Staff assigned this mission to me and I chose Chuck Yeager to go with me. We took turns chasing each other in an F-86, while one or the other of us flew the prototype. We worked hard and under very trying conditions.
This was truly the unknown, flying in foreign aircraft with which we were unfamiliar, hoping the French engineers really had made themselves understood while speaking to us in imprecise English. We really missed having a Jack Ridley along- our own engineering backup to help us get through these tests on new equipment. We started by flying the MD 450 Dassault Ouragan and ended by flying the MD452 Mystere jet fighter. In between we flew their bomber and cargo plane prototypes. I recall taking off in their four engine jet transport.
General Al Boyd by plane
Chuck was in the copilot’s seat, and I had just put my wheels up when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see a little man in a striped coat with a tray of champagne. I turned to Chuck and burst out laughing. “Oh my God,” I said, ‘that’s all I need on my first flight in this thing.

Chuck, of course, took up their fighters and did everything in the world that could be done with them. The French engineers just shook their heads. He spun them, dived them, stalled them-everything.

As usual, he just impressed the hell out of me with his ability to perform under pressure and his understanding of the systems aboard. It was partly innate and partly self-taught, but whatever the reason, he had more than the equivalent of an engineering degree, many times over. After ten minutes, he flew those unfamiliar airplanes as if he owned them. His quick mastery over complicated equipment was just amazing.”

c. GCYI

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