For more than 70 years, some of the most skilled aviators have passed through the doors of the USAF Test Pilot School. Combat Aircraft meets its current commanding officer, Col Charles Webb.
WALKING INTO THE US Air Force Test Pilot School (TPS) at Edwards AFB, California, you are left in no doubt as to the esteemed company the building has hosted. The walls are liberally decorated with historic photographs and paintings, not to mention the names of all the students and commanding officers over the past 70 years. None are better known around the world than Brig Gen Charles E. Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947. Yeager is the only one of 42 commanding officers to have completed the school syllabus twice — in 1946 (class 46C) as well as in 1951 (class 51A). In July 1962, he returned here as the ‘boss’ to lead the TPS for a further four years.
