I remember years ago hearing a quip about Chuck Yaeger: "When entering a room, his presence is announced by the sound of his balls clanking together."
Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff talked about Yaeger and his influence on pilots that came after him. Wolfe says it was Yaeger that started the distinctive, calm, drawling cadence that we hear over the airplane intercom every time we hop a flight. Pilots have imitated it since Yaeger's day, and it would be a sad sack of pilot who bitched, whined, or screamed over the air. He'd never live it down with his breathren.
Wolfe has it that most pilots are calm and collected: "I'm going down...I've tried A...I've tried B...I've tried C..." And all of it barely above a whisper.
Now US Airways pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III has achieved Iron Balls status, and he has the voice to prove it. The air traffic control crew deserve credit, too:
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Photo: Yaeger with the Bell X-1, the plane that broke the sound barrier. He named it after his wife.
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