Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. ? Legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier Saturday for what he said was the last time, more than a half-century after he became the first person to accomplish the feat.

Yeager, 79, split the air with a sonic boom as he opened an air show that drew thousands of fans to the desert base. Yeager took an F-15 Eagle to just over 30,000 feet on his last supersonic flight.

Edwards test pilot Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine was in the back seat as the plane reached Mach 1.45, or nearly 1 1/2 times the speed of sound.

After completing the hour-long flight, the retired Air Force brigadier general taxied the plane under an archway of water gushing from two fire trucks in an Air Force tradition.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager, 79, right, is saluted as he steps down from his F-15 Eagle after his final supersonic flight. The legendary test pilot broke the sound barrier Saturday at an air show at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time on Oct. 14, 1947, on a flight over the Mojave Desert. The flight was depicted in the movie “The Right Stuff.”

Yeager’s craft was joined by a second F-15 piloted by friend and colleague Joe Engle, a 70-year-old former NASA astronaut, retired major general and Kansas University alumnus.

Yeager announced earlier this year that the supersonic flight would be his last.