When Chuck Yeager Broke the Sound Barrier With Broken Ribs

Chuck Yeager, easily the most famed test pilot in human history, broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 experimental rocket plane. What’s even more amazing is that he did it with two broken ribs. But the breaks didn’t occur during the historic flight. They occurred on the ground the night before.

Yeager had completed eight powered flights in the X-1 up to that point, and the next step was to take the plane to Mach .98. A dangerous maneuverability problem had been corrected, and it was felt the plane could be pushed further. The next flight would be after a weekend, and the night before he was to go up again, Yeager and his wife, Glennis (whose name had been used as a nickname for the X-1, the “Glamorous Glennis”) went out to dinner at a well-known, local establishment called Pancho’s.

After their dinner, the couple took a pair of Pancho’s horses out for a ride. They raced the horses for the barn at the end of the ride, but a gate had been closed. Yeager’s horse struck the gate, threw him, and he landed on the ground. The result of the fall was two broken ribs.

A couple of broken ribs would have grounded Yeager from flying, so he got his wife to drive him to an off-base doctor who taped them up. But a new problem arose. Yeager wasn’t physically able to close the cockpit of the plane. He told…