Chuck Yeager’s relationship with the Air Force has been somewhat unique.  Made a Brigadier General, there were rumors he retired in a huff after being denied a second star.  Even after retirement, however, he continued to fly Air Force aircraft.  For a time, he even worked as a “contractor” for $1 a year, which gave him access to such flights.  He had a much ballyhooed “last flight” with the Air Force in 1997, 50 years after breaking the sound barrier.

Of course, he has continued to fly with the Air Force, including flights on virtually every October 14th to celebrate his 1947 flight in the X-1.  Last year it was in an F-16.  This year, an F-15 at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas on a Sunday romp to supersonic speeds: 

This time the 89-year-old Yeager, who was featured in the movie “The Right Stuff,” flew in the back seat Sunday of an F-15 Eagle instead of the experimental rocket plane, Bell X-1, he piloted on the historic flight. 

The F-15 took off from Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas and broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet above California’s Mojave Desert where Yeager achieved the feat on Oct. 14, 1947.

The interesting part was further down in the article, however:

Yeager’s wife, Victoria, …told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “He’s in the back seat where the instructor pilot sits because he’s the elder statesman.”

To borrow an internet-ism, “Um…no.”  It’s true properly trained students sit in the front while their instructors take the rear, because the primary flight position is in the front.  But the front is also where the pilot sits when they fly passengers in the back.  Some basic aircraft operations — like starting the engines in an F-15 — can only be done from the front seat.   Yeager did fly front-seat for many years, but at some point his proficiency was likely recognized as a barrier to his ability to safely act at the primary set of flight controls.  Thus, Yeager sits in the back like every other incentive flyer.

As an interesting aside, Yeager (or his wife, as the rumors indicate) recently lost a lawsuit over the misappropriation of his name.  According to a 2010 article, the Yeagers were suing a variety of companies for mentioning Yeager in their commercials.