Yeager Flies Under The South Side Bridge!
(Photoshopped image depicting Yeagers pass)
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As the story goes, in 1948, Chuck Yeager was visiting his parents in a nearby town in West Virginia and had just departed the Charleston airport that now bears his name. International Yeager Airport (IATA: CRW, ICAO: KCRW, FAA LID: CRW) located 3 miles east of downtown Charleston. That day, Yeager was flying a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, America's first successful turbojet-powered combat aircraft.
According to reports, Yeager’s Shooting Star was spotted approaching the bridge at high speed (500mph) chasing that shouting wind at approximately 50 feet over the Kanawha River.
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Much to astonished onlookers, Yeager proceeded to drop even lower above the river, producing wake due to the jet wash in his trail, and proceeded most unofficially to fly directly under the South Side Bridge (CNE) in downtown Charleston, then rolled 45 degrees and nosed up, climbing away from countless stunned onlookers whom not only had never seen a jet before, and certainly not an aircraft shooting underneath the downtown South Side Bridge.
He then circled around the State Capitol building before departing Westbound back for Edwards AFB. There are no official reports, nor any documentation, but in response to this unofficial, unsubstantiated occurrence, locals renamed the bridge the Chuck Yeager Bridge in his honor.
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Years later, Yeager was on a call-in radio program. He not only confirmed it, but claimed the local media in Charleston had requested him to repeat the pass so they could get a picture. He declined to give them their photo opportunity, explaining why, "I had learned as a fighter pilot, strafing ground targets, that it was almost always a bad idea to go back for a second pass."
After years of living in Charleston, I learned about the Chuck Yeager Bridge carrying traffic for the northern end of the West Virginia Turnpike, a few miles upriver from the Southside Bridge under which he flew. Why is your story different? Moreover, the airport serving Charleston, WV (CRW), was renamed Yeager Airport.
Just realized the P-80 was born the same year I was. 1944.
HI, Do you have the I.H.T.F.P. patch ??
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