WHERE THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER STICK OF BEAMANS:

Incredible new video footage has emerged of legendary pilot Chuck Yeager losing control of an astronaut training jet at 100,000 feet but dramatically ejecting just moments before the aircraft crashes to the ground.

Almost 59 years ago today, on December 10, 1963, that Aerospace Research Pilot School Commander Chuck Yeager strapped into the cockpit of a NF-104A, ahead of what would later prove to be a nail-biting brushing with death.

The NF-104A, which is essentially an F-104 Starfighter modified with a thrust rocket engine tail, was chosen earlier that year to train pilots to become astronauts at Edwards Air Force Base, in California, in the controversial 'Right Stuff' educational program.

On that day, it was Colonel Yeager's job to test the capabilities of the seldom-flown aircraft and to see how its reaction control systems would fair in the weak molecular structure of the atmosphere above 100,000 feet.

But Yeager - dubbed the 'World's Fastest Man' after becoming the first pilot to break the sound barrier in 1947 - had something else on his mind.

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