So our smokey joe in Iceland is kicking off again. Only a matter of time before we all say sod it and go anyway. Something, somewhere, is going to drop out of the sky.
Been reading about a guy called Chuck Yeager who broke the sound barrier on October 14 1947.Everyone reckoned it couldn't be done without breaking up the plane, but Yeager did it with two broken ribs after a run-in with a horse. He had to shut the X-1 Plane door with a broom handle because he could barely move his arm. Heading for Mach 1 Yeager reported:" had a mild buffet there.. jes the usual instability" in his slow American drawl, copied by cool pilots everywhere.
A few years later he is flight testing a plane and is 20 miles up, where weightlessness kicks in. On the way back things go badly wrong and he comes hurtling down tail first at 150 feet a second. He ejects at 7,000 feet and the red-hot rocket part of the seat smashes into his head, almost taking his eye out and setting fire to pure oxygen flooding his helmet. It's full of smoke, his face is on fire and he can't breathe. He sticks hand in the hole in the helmet to try to force some fresh air in and his finger fries.The only thing that saves his eye is the burned-on blood. He has third degree burns, spends a month in hospital and walks away. He even gets back the use of his finger. That's showing them! Risk? What risk?
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