Gordon Yaeger

Gordon R. Yaeger piloted the Bell Rocket Belt at the 1964 New York World Fair and in the James Bond movie Thunderball. He was born on May 5, 1927. He worked for Bell Aircraft Corporation in Wheatfield, New York. He died in Buffalo Hospice in Cheektowaga aged 77 after a long illness on January 23, 2005.

Yaegar attended Burgard High School in Buffalo, New York, before attending the University at Buffalo and UCLA. He moved his family to Amherst, New York in 1955. In 2008, the Town of Amherst named a street after him.