I think Wiggy has hit the nail on the head. Yeager's best years where at a time when his natural talents (hunting, shooting, mechanics, eye/hand co-ordination) gave him several advantages in his early career but, increasingly, his "Good 'ol boy" nature couldn't cut it as technology and test methods increased in complexity. He was not alone in sneering at the Mercury programme (several TPs feared their military careers would be compromised), but the day of the engineering Test Pilot had arrived and his lack of education (a fault of his time not of his innate intelligence) held him back - hence he went back to the "real" USAF to get his star. It's said he cared little for the space programme until the Shuttle, which he grudgingly accepted was a "real aircraft" and supposedly met his good friend Joe Engle at Edwards after STS-2 (where Engle flew the only fully manual re-entry of the entire Shuttle project) and gave him a thorough "well done". In hindsight, I'm surprised he didn't pull strings to get a ride in the Shuttle (like Glenn) - but he'd probably have insisted on flying it......He's entitled to his opinion on us Brits; but we did make a better impression on Robin Olds and I know who I'd rather have at a "dream dinner party".....