And Yeager did it with 2 broken ribs.
I still remember the first time I flew supersonic.
It was one of the scheduled hops in our syllabus, so we would understand how differently the plane flew when it went supersonic versus subsonic, and the things to watch out for when going back from supersonic to subsonic.
My instructor pilot was LT Randy Leddy, and his persona is what you'd call 'tough but fair.' For those of you who don't know, the Navy F-4 does not have controls in the back seat.
So when we take off, my instructor knows there are only three ways this flight will end: I will land the plane safely, or we both will take the silk descent, or we both go BOOM and end our Navy careers, not to mention our lives.
So, we left Oceana and headed ten miles out to sea. That was because we weren't allowed to fly supersonic within ten miles of the coast because it might upset the pussy civilians, but that's incidental to this story.
We flew ten miles out, climbed to 20,000 feet, and Randy said, "OK, here we go. Pull the nose up twenty degrees, then plug in the burners and go zero 'G's."
I did, and watched the Mach meter climb.
.85, .9, 1.0, 1.2 . . .
The only reason I knew I was supersonic was because the Mach meter was above 1.0. The plane didn't shudder or rock. It just did what it did, without complaint.
When I realized I was flying faster than the speed of sound, I thought back for just a second to what it must have been like for Chuck Yeager, who had the crap beat out of him as he pushed his plane just over Mach one.
Many scientists of the time thought that you would hit a wall at Mach 1 that would destroy your airplane. Yeager went ahead and flew the Glamorous Glennis anyway.
And here I was, following in his footsteps. I thought about him that day. I thought about all the great brave men who had not only put their lives on the line, but had given them to advance our ability to fly against the boundaries of what was once considered to be impossible.
God bless them all.