Chuck celebrates 65th Anniversary of going supersonic - by going supersonic.

Sixty-five years after becoming the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager is still making noise.

This time the 89-year-old Yeager, who was featured in the movie "The Right Stuff," flew in the back seat Sunday of an F-15 Eagle instead of the experimental rocket plane, Bell X-1, he piloted on the historic flight.

'He's in the back seat where the instructor pilot sits because he's the elder statesman.'

- Victoria Yeager, Chuck's wife

The F-15 took off from Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas and broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert where Yeager achieved the feat on Oct. 14, 1947.

Asked by a young girl afterward if he was scared, Yeager joked, "Yeah, I was scared to death."

But the legendary pilot said he continues to fly all the time and it was just another flight to him.

The flight went smoothly, and Yeager flew the F-15 as it took off and landed, said Airman Timothy Young, a Nellis spokesman. The plane was piloted by Capt. David Vincent of the 65th Aggressor Squadron at Nellis.

The aircraft broke the sound barrier at 10:24 a.m. Sunday, exactly 65 years to the minute the then-Air Force test pilot made history. At the time, the F-15 was flying over Muroc Dry Lake in California where he accomplished the feat in 1947.

On that earlier flight, Yeager took off from the Air Force test center at Muroc Field, now Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

Yeager told reporters on Sunday that he remains grateful for what his Air Force service allowed him to achieve. He has flown more than 350 kinds of planes around the world.

"It was a great honor to have him fly out of Nellis," Young said. "We pride ourselves on training fighter pilots and to have someone of his caliber here is such an honor."

Yeager's wife, Victoria, said he had been looking forward to re-enacting the historic flight.

"This is so cool. I'm excited," she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "He's in the back seat where the instructor pilot sits because he's the elder statesman."

On the anniversary of the historic flight last year, Yeager flew an F-16 to reach Mach 1, the speed of sound.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/14/8-year-old-chuck-yeager-flies-again-re-enacts-sound-barrier-flight-on-its-65th/#ixzz29KPSclzM

Sub & Aegis cruiser try and occupy same space at same time - collide

By The Associated Press

NORFOLK, Va. October 14, 2012 (AP)

The Pentagon said late Saturday that it is investigating why a Navy submarine collided with an Aegis cruiser off the East Coast.

The U.S. Fleet Forces Command said in a news release that the submarine USS Montpelier and the Aegis cruiser USS San Jacinto collided at about 3:30 p.m. during routine operations. No one was injured, and the extent of any damage to the vessels was not clear Saturday evening, said Lt. Commander Brian Badura of the Fleet Forces Command.

Navy officials said the collision was under investigation, but declined to offer specifics on what happens next or on where the incident took place.

"If we do have an incident that does take place, there are folks that swing into action... to help us make a better, more conclusive explanation of exactly what happened," Badura said.

The news release says "overall damage to both ships is being evaluated," and that the sub's propulsion plant was "unaffected by the collision." Both Navy ships are based at Norfolk, Va. and are operating on their own power, the news release says.

US Drones kills Pakistani militant commander - 16 total

PARACHINAR, Pakistan -- U.S. drones fired four missiles at a compound of a Pakistani militant commander in a northwestern tribal region on Thursday, killing 16 militants, while a pair of bombings in another part of the country killed 10 civilians and three security personnel, officials said.

A government administrator in Orakzai region, Salim Khan, said 12 insurgents were also wounded in the drone attack near Biland village bordering the North Waziristan tribal region. Three Pakistani intelligence officials said the dead and wounded men were fighters loyal to militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who is based in North Waziristan.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief reporters on the record.

Although U.S. authorities often target militant hideouts in the country's North and South Waziristan tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, such strikes in other tribal regions like Orakzai are rare. The U.S. rarely discusses the unmanned drone strikes, which are part of a covert CIA program.

The strikes are extremely contentious in Pakistan, where many consider them an affront to Pakistani sovereignty. They also say the strikes kill innocent civilians, which the U.S. denies.

The Pakistani government protested to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad about Thursday's drone strikes as well as another on Wednesday in which five people were killed.

"The embassy was informed that drone strikes on Pakistani territory were a clear violation of international law and Pakistan's sovereignty. These attacks were unacceptable to Pakistan," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Washington says the strikes are an important part of battling militants in the tribal areas, where Pakistan has been unable or unwilling to do so.

The latest drone attack came hours after a bomb at a crowded market in Pakistan's restive southwestern province of Baluchistan killed 10 people. A roadside bombing elsewhere in the troubled region killed three security officials, police said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings, but nationalists in Baluchistan have long waged a low-level insurgency to pressure the government to increase the local share of funds from resources such as natural gas that are extracted from the province.

Islamist militants, including the al-Qaida affiliated group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, also operate in Baluchistan.

The market bombing Thursday took place in the town of Sibi in Baluchistan, and it also wounded 24 people, said senior police officer, Ghulam Aali Lashari.

Lashari said the blast destroyed several shops in the town, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of Quetta, the provincial capital.

Hours later, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying security officers in the southwestern town of Dera Bugti. That attack killed three officers and wounded two, said police officer Shehbaz Khan.

Also Thursday, gunmen kidnapped a retired Pakistani army brigadier who was working under contract with the country's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. The abduction took place on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, shortly after the officer left his home for work, said a police and a security official.

The officer's driver resisted and was shot and killed, said the two officials, who both spoke on condition anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive issues with reporters. They requested that the kidnapped officer's name be withheld because his safety could be compromised if it were disclosed.

One of the officials said the officer was working on a counterterrorism assignment but would not disclose the exact nature of the mission.

Associated Press Writers Asif Shehzad in Islamabad, Rasool Dawar in Peshawar and Abdul Sattar in Quetta contributed to this report.

Altus tanker diverts to Amarillo after declaring an emergency.

A KC-135 tanker from Altus AFB declared an in-flight emergency and diverted to Amarillo after its' stabilizer froze up during an aerial refueling mission over the Texas Panhandle.

 Speaking under conditions of anonymity the pilot said "This was the second time today the stabilizer froze. The first time iit was temporary - the second not so much." The stabilizer is the large movable surface on tail the aircraft that steers the plane.

 If for any reason the stabilizer becomes locked, the aircraft can be steered by using wing flaps and engine thrust.

However, steering the large aircraft in this manner is not ideal. Turns have to be wide and very slowly. GASSER 13 declared an in flight emergency and was diverted to Amarillo. The airspace was cleared as the large aerial refueling tanker made wide turns to line up with the long runway 22 at Rick Husband Int Airport. AFD was called out to meet the tanker (which was filled with jet fuel)as a precautionary measure.

 The KC-135 landed safely and without incident will be spending a few days in Amarillo, awaiting a crew from Altus AFB, in southwest Oklahoma, to repair the problem.

Photo (C) Steve Douglass

Watch Felix's big jump live