Chuck Yeager

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1923 age 0

   Born

2. 1983 age 60

   CreditThe Right Stuff

3. 2020 age 97

   Died

• SGScott Glenn1 title
• LHLance Henriksen1 title
• JGJeff Goldblum1 title
• VCVeronica Cartwright1 title
• SWScott Wilson1 title
• OJO-Lan Jones1 title
• EHEd Harris1 title
• PKPhilip Kaufman1 title
• BHBarbara Hershey1 title
• HSHarry Shearer1 title

• Actually, when people tell you that, "I had my mind made up when I was two years old to do this," I think you should take that with a grain of salt. Because it's very difficult for a kid who is going through an educational process, and being exposed to the world, to decide what he wants to do. Because he really hadn't been exposed to that kind of a life yet. And I had no idea what I wanted to do, except exist and that was about it. I had no interest in airplanes; we didn't even know what an airplane was. We didn't even see them except flying in the air. So obviously, there was no interest in them at all.

  Chuck Yeager, CC BY-SA 4.0

• My father taught me to finish anything I started. And I think that carries throughout your adult life. Most people's personalities and moralities are formed when they are rather young, and that characteristic will carry out throughout their lifetime. We were disciplined as kids, quite severely, if you didn't finish your jobs, and I think that's what brought about a desire to finish what I start and do the best job you could. And that's probably the reason that characteristic has carried throughout my life.

  Chuck Yeager, CC BY-SA 4.0

• There is no kind of ultimate goal to do something twice as good as anyone else can. It's just to do the job as best you can. If it turns out good, fine. If it doesn't, that's the way it goes.

  Chuck Yeager, CC BY-SA 4.0

• In World War II, in combat in P-51s, during dogfights with 109s and 190s, for the first time we became exposed to the effects of the speed of sound on our airplanes. A Mustang, a P-47, or any of the other fighters that we were using in World War II, the fastest they would go was about 80 percent the speed of sound. They had very thick wings and canopies. That additional distance that the air had to travel to go around that wing that's going at about 80 percent of the speed of sound, brought its relative velocity to the skin of the wing up to the speed of sound.

  Chuck Yeager, CC BY-SA 4.0

• You like the P-51 because you flew it in combat. It was a good airplane. But today, the newer the airplane, the better it is. It's just like a car. You get a 1991 Cadillac, you got high tech, a lot of computer technology in it, versus a 1980 Cadillac. It's just better and more fun to drive.

  Chuck Yeager, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The more experience you have, the better you are. And that's true of anything you do in airplanes, dogfighting in combat, or anything like that. Your chances of coming out on top depend on your experience level. The more experience you can get, the better chance you have of surviving in a war, or in any situation where you are faced with an emergency.

  Chuck Yeager, CC BY-SA 4.0