___As a Colonel and Chief of the Flight Test Division at Wright Field in the summer of 1947, Albert Boyd was confronted with a job of selecting the test pilot who would make the assault on the “sound barrier.” Considered “the father” of modern USAF flight testing, General Boyd recalled several years later:

___“Selecting the X-1 pilot was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. If the pilot had an accident, he could set back our supersonic program a couple of years . . . And I was well aware that the decision could be historic, so I asked my deputy, Col. Fred Ascani, to sit down with me and review all 125 pilots in the Flight Test Division and see what kind of list we could compile . . .

___I wanted a pilot capable of doing extremely precise, scientific flying. Above all, I wanted a pilot who was rock solid in stability. Yeager came up number one.

___. . . there was no doubt in our minds that he was the one, because of his ability to perform and his stability and willingness to follow instructions, and, of course, his tremendous ability as a pilot . . . We had several other outstanding pilots to chose from but none of them could quite match his skill in a cockpit or his coolness under pressure.” next voice