Let the shockwave topple monuments

[sovay]

I felt much more ambivalent about the development of the Bell X-1 after I learned the history of the Miles M.52, but I still recognize the loss of Chuck Yeager. I grew up building and launching model rockets; one of my childhood talismans was a Matchbox SR-71. I can't remember not knowing about him.

Comments

[sovay]

Same here, although I had no idea he'd lived this long.

I asked spatch how old he was when he died and it turned out it was exactly the age I'd thought and I hadn't realized until then that I must have carried his birth year at the back of my head for ready calculation, but here we are. There are writers and actors I can't do that with!

(I have been startled by other people, though. When Christopher Fry died in 2005, I legitimately thought he'd been dead since the '70's.)

My own young association with the SR-71 was it was the plane the X-Men flew.

Fair enough!