General Chuck Yeager, the greatest test pilot of them all - the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound...the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a prop-driven P-51 Mustang...the hero who defined a certain quality that all the hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff. Now Chuck Yeager tells his whole incredible life story with the same 'wide-open, full throttle' appraoch that has marked his astonishing career. What it was really like engaging in do-or-die dogfights over Nazi Europe. How, after being shot down over occupied France, Yeager somehow managed to escape. The amazing behind-the-scenes story of smashing the sound barrier despite cracked ribs from a riding accident days before. The entire story is here, in Yeager's own words, and in colleagues who have known him best. It is the personal and public story of a man who settled for nothing less than excellence, a one-of-a-kind portrait of a true American hero.
