Pause for Purpose

Mark K October 25th, 2008

          By chance, Chuck Yeager happened to be staying in our hotel in Toulouse.  He was in town as a guest of Airbus, the huge European aircraft manufacturer, which is located in Toulouse.  Yeager is famous as a fighter pilot in World War II and as a pre-NASA test pilot, who was the first person to break the sound barrier.   I asked him if he still flies and he said that as a matter of fact he had flown one of the largest Airbus jumbo jets just the day before.  During World War II, he had been shot down nearby and had been rescued by the French resistance.  They helped him make his way to Spain, where he was turned over to the Spanish.  Later, he told me, he was traded to the Americans for some gasoline.  During his flight with Airbus, he was able to view the area where he had parachuted after being shot down in 1944.      I asked him if he had regretted not being part of the NASA space program.  He said, no, that being a NASA astronaut was not really being a pilot and that it was a program filled with government bureaucracy – something that he wanted no part of.     He was wearing a bright orange cap which, he explained to his interpreter, came in handy during hunting season back home.   

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