Without a rocket, without a college education, without a tickertape parade, Chuck Yeager made it into space with just a plane. He really did have the Right Stuff.
I mean space starts at 350,000ft (he was at 101,000) but your damn right he managed to do all this with his own bravery, i was in sorrow the entire day when the news said he passed away
Not trying to steal your thunder but he actually did have a rocket, the actual plane he used was an NF-104 that had a rocket but in the movie a F-104 was shown
Don't forget to honor the stuntman who died during this sequence. Sad taint to such a perfect movie. "During the filming of a sequence portraying Chuck Yeager's ejection from an NF-104, stuntman Joseph Svec, a former Green Beret, was killed when he failed to open his parachute because he may have been unconscious from smoke." (from Wikipedia)
Yeager was actually on fire inside his suit after he ejected because the pyrotechnics from his seat shattered through his visor. If you look closely, the movie tries to convey it, but if you read the book he is in a life and death struggle to pull the lava like stuffing out of his helmet. Balls of steel. Punch a hole in the sky Chuck! RIP
Yeah according to his biography, he got hit in the face with the bottom of the ejection seat, which was still glowing red hot - his pressure suit had pure oxygen and the rubber seals of his helmet caught fire - with the pure oxygen it became a blow torch. He was severely burned and had to endure some crazy painful treatments afterward.
@@LavaLampBlob thanks for the explanation! I never really knew the reason for the frantically attempt to pull the helmet off or why Sam Shepherd's face was blackened.
The great Levon Helm delivering that line perfectly in reference to the great Chuck Yeager played by the great Sam Shepherd. Two legends lionizing a legendary hero.
And today not even race car drivers of the highest category behave like that... like men. Rubber champions, cry babies... from the farming land which is Netherlands... not even NASCAR ... pathetic
Chuck Yeager got jibbed, seriously. He was the best damn test pilot in the US and just because he lacked a college education they completely ignored he broke the sound barrier and passed him over.
The brass also knew we was going to be too hard to control. Too much of a maverick. He had more influence than the other guys that did end up becoming astronauts.
Chuck Yeager deserves his own candle! He has brought more spiritual enlightenment to this world… bringing spiritual evolution to all that began to know him! My family thanks you
Even right before he passed at 96, there is no one...NO one...I'd want more at the controls of an aircraft I was in that Chuck Yeager. You know that no matter how bad the emergency, with his dying breath, that man would get that plane down and you'd walk away. He maintained an even strain. Chuck Yeager: for all time, the greatest pilot, the rightest stuff.
Lest we forget the import of this certain scene, Yeager barely escaped with his life in a botched first attempt at sub-orbital flight. However, he was a true hero. Before Glenn, he was the first to surpass all the known limits of the sky ceiling.
The Best Pilot and Astronaut!!! He flew....no mission control.....The Man Flew into the edge of space! God Bless Mr. Yeager!!! Balls as big as Planets!
This is a top 3 1980s movie and up there with the greatest aviation movies like Wings and Hell's Angels. Sad that it gets overshadowed by Top Gun, because it's so much better.
Lord, guard and guide the men who fly through the great spaces in the sky. Be with them always in the air, in darkened storm or sunlight glare. O, hear us when we lift our prayer, for those in peril in the air. A-men. R.I.P Chuck "Flyboy" Yeager
I love how the moral of the story is something along the lines of “the men who do nothing get the fame but the men who don’t are the ones who get shit done”. Or at least that’s how I interpreted it.
The F104 was a beautiful aircraft but it wasn't meant to fly. It earned the nickname "Widowmaker" due to accidents associated with it. And also in service with various NATO countries although it was plagued by bribe scandal. It was immortalized here. Just beautiful cinematography
Bill Conti plagiarized Tchaikovsky’s violín concerto to create the main theme for The Right Stuff, and he won an Oscar I think... But truthfully the new arrangement is what gives these strong scenes more potency... I say well done. But the story behind this, even if it was different ... this movie helps to reminds us of it
Bill made something original, and it was rejected, and he was ordered to create something that was both awesome and yet completely last minute at the same time. Bill did what he had to do.
this scene does not do Yeager justice, but it is a movie. Reading his autobiography, Yeager was the ultimate professional. He would never just wing something as shown. Yeager was some sort of guy - few of us hit our slot in life. I'd love to have had a coffee with his wife and get her take. But as Jack Reacher would say, "in an investigation, details matter." - these 104s were modified with thrusters on the aircraft. Everyone already knew that once you lost atmosphere, flight surfaces would not work. USAF had been going to space for 10 years before NASA ever formed - NASA absorbed all of their data. That day, the nose thrusters failed - there was no way to put the 104 (which could barely fly anyway) into an envelope to regain control. To USAF and the early astronauts!...
2024: As much as I dislike some parts of this film, this scene is one of my favorites. I was a baby when the Mercury program was going on, having been born a month to the day after John Glenn made his historic flight
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Higher, higher, or faster, faster. They simply challenge difficult goals. why? They may be charred and die. The reason may be that their challenge will realize a bright future for humankind. In Japanese. 高く、高く、あるいは速く、さらに速く。 挑戦者達は、ただ一筋に困難な目標に挑む。 なぜ？ 黒焦げになって死ぬかもしれないのに。 挑戦のその先に、人類の輝かしい未来の実現があるからこそ、なのかもしれない。
My third wish is to be allowed to take a flight in an F-16; I want to fly vertically off the ground to an altitude of 60 thousand feet; my reason for this wish is because I was heavily influenced by the bravery and repeated successes of Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager. Chuck Yeager was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in 1947 became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound in level flight. Yeager was raised in Hamlin, West Virginia... and he was and always will be a good man.
He didn’t set an altitude record in a plane that day. He did set a record for the highest altitude bail out. Only the second time he had to eject. The other was is ww2. There is a sight dedicated to the plane. It goes into detail on the accident. How Yeager was actually at fault. He wasn’t punished because he was a superstar but was forbidden from trying to set any more records. Also this wasn’t a joyride like it was portrayed, it was an official attempt to break the Russian record. Also Ridley was long dead by then, he died in tokyo years before.
We have many many heroes in the history of the USA. These days it's all about African American heroes. Yeager was the man, the best as far as we know and history proves. I think there may have been an African American flyer that would have performed above and beyond after WW2 where they proved a killer instinct flying Mustangs. One of the Mercury 7 should have been a man of color as long as he mustered up and I am certain that was possible.
Saw this when i was a kid. Always bugged me that he didn't make it out. I don't condone martyrdom / fanaticism based upon patriotism. But i do respect choosing which ever way one should check out.
What the F does his being straight (I really don’t know, nor do I care, about his sexual preferences) or his being white, have to do with his accomplishments here? They don’t. If he wore a size 9 shoe, are we going to start touting “Size 9 Pride” too?
