Yeager breaks sound barrier - Oct 14, 1947 - HISTORY.com Yeager breaks sound barrier Publisher A+E Networks U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Yeager, born in Myra, West Virginia, in 1923, was a combat fighter during World War II and flew 64 missions over Europe. He shot down 13 German planes and was himself shot down over France, but he escaped capture with the assistance of the French Underground. After the war, he was among several volunteers chosen to test-fly the experimental X-1 rocket plane, built by the Bell Aircraft Company to explore the possibility of supersonic flight. For years, many aviators believed that man was not meant to fly faster than the speed of sound, theorizing that transonic drag rise would tear any aircraft apart. All that changed on October 14, 1947, when Yeager flew the X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California.

The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude). The rocket plane, nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis,” was designed with thin, unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a .50-caliber bullet. Because of the secrecy of the project, Bell and Yeager’s achievement was not announced until June 1948. Yeager continued to serve as a test pilot, and in 1953 he flew 1,650 miles per hour in an X-1A rocket plane. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1975 with the rank of brigadier general. Related Videos Oct. 14, 1947: Yeager Machs the Sound Barrier | WIRED Oct. 14, 1947: Yeager Machs the Sound Barrier subscribe 6 months for $5 - plus a FREE Portable Phone Charger.

On Twitter 6 hours 11 things we wanna steal from #CES2017 but won't because stealing isn't cool, okay? You just don't do it. It's wrong wrd.cm/2jl9IPu Author: Jason Paur. Jason Paur Date of Publication: 10.14.09. Time of Publication: 12:00 am. 12:00 am Oct. 14, 1947: Yeager Machs the Sound Barrier 1947: Capt. Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager pilots the rocket-powered Bell X-1 to a speed of Mach 1.07, becoming the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. In breaking the sound barrier, Yeager becomes the fastest man alive — and the legend of the X-Planes begins. Photo Gallery: Let the X-Planes Begin As airplanes flew faster and faster throughout the 1930s, pilots began to experience a number of problems associated with the increased airspeed. Aircraft such as the Lockheed P-38 and Republic P-47 flew just fine at ordinary speeds in level flight.

But if pilots put them in a high-speed dive, they began to experience control problems that led to the deaths of several pilots. The main problem facing these pilots was the aerodynamic condition known as compressibility. Simply stated, at speeds well below the speed of sound, most of the air molecules have time to get out of the way of an aircraft as it approaches, and the density of the air does not change. However, as the speed of sound is approached, the air molecules can’t get out of the way, and more of them hit the aircraft. The impact compresses the air in front of the aircraft and increases the air density. Eventually shock waves form around the airplane, affecting the lift and drag. These changes were not well-understood and led to the loss of control in several aircraft. Because the effects of compressibility are directly related to the speed of sound, a ratio is used to describe the speed of an aircraft. The Mach number is the speed at which an object is traveling relative to the speed of sound at a particular temperature. The name is in honor of physicist Ernest Mach, who studied high-speed gas dynamics.

The Bell X-1 was developed to research aerodynamics in the transonic region , or speeds just below and just above the speed of sound. After numerous flights with civilian test pilots, Capt. Yeager of the newly formed U.S. Air Force made his first powered flight in the X-1 on Aug. 29, 1947, high over the Mojave Desert of southern California. Over the next several weeks, Yeager piloted the X-1, named ‘Glamorous Glennis’ after his wife, on several flights creeping closer and closer to the sound barrier. In his autobiography, Yeager , the legendary test pilot writes about one of the surprises discovered during the experimental test flights: “I was flying at 0.94 Mach at 40,000 feet, experiencing the usual buffeting, when I pulled back on the control wheel, and Christ, nothing happened!” Yeager had experienced one of the control problems associated with transonic flight. “The airplane continued flying with the same attitude and in the same direction.” The problem Yeager was experiencing was the ineffectiveness of the X-1’s pitch controls, as shock waves essentially created an aerodynamic shadow around the tail.

Changes were made to the horizontal tail controls, allowing Yeager to control the airplane’s ability to pitch up and down, and flights continued. This knowledge would lead to the all-flying tail, or stabilator, standard on all supersonic fighters today. Yeager was nursing two broken ribs on the morning of Oct. 14, after being thrown from his horse on a ride the night before. He boarded the B-29 bomber that was to carry the Bell X-1 to altitude. The plan was to fly to Mach 0.97. But Yeager says the new moving tail boosted his morale, and he wanted to fly faster. After climbing down into the X-1, which was carried like a bomb in the belly of the B-29, Yeager’s friend and fellow test pilot Jack Ridley handed him a short, sawed-off section of broomstick. Yeager would use it to close the canopy of the X-1, because his broken ribs prevented him from closing the latch normally. The X-1 was dropped, and the first two chambers of the rocket were ignited to carry the plane to 40,000 feet.

Still climbing, Yeager ignited the last two chambers, and as the speed passed Mach 0.96, he says the ride started to smooth out. After watching the needle on the Machmeter fluctuate a bit, it suddenly went off the end of the scale. (In a less-than-optimistic design, the instrument topped out at Mach 1.0.) People on the ground heard what sounded like distant thunder. It was the first sonic boom ever created by an aircraft. At age 24, Yeager had flown faster than the speed of sound. The flight was kept secret, and the world wouldn’t know about the first supersonic flight until months later. The X-1 would fly more than a hundred more times, reaching a speed of Mach 1.45. Subsequent X-1 models would fly more than twice the speed of sound. Later X-Planes would fly even faster, reaching hypersonic speeds where the density of the air wasn’t the only thing to change: They would fly so fast, the chemistry of the air would change. Capt. Yeager would go on to become Gen. Yeager and the iconic test pilot.

He was the first commandant of the Air Force’s test-pilot school and continued commanding fighter squadrons into the 1960s. Now age 86, Yeager will return this Saturday to the skies over the Mojave desert. He’ll make a now-routine supersonic flyby to kick off Edwards Air Force Base’s air show and open house. Sources: The X-Planes, X-1 to X-45, by Jay Miller; Yeager, by Gen. Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos NOVA Online | Faster Than Sound | Men of the X-1 Men of the X-1 De Beeler was an aeronautical engineer for NACA, the predecessor to NASA. He helped design the X-1, which was the first airplane to break the sound barrier. Slick Goodlin was a test pilot for Bell Laboratories and made numerous flights in the X-1 before it was transferred to the military for the sound barrier attempt. In 1947, Chuck Yeager was a Captain with the United States Air Force assigned as a test pilot to the X-1 program.

On October 14, 1947, he became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Get RealPlayer Goodlin: I guess one could say that the X-1 was a bullet with wings on it. It was a very small aircraft. It was only 31 feet long and had a 28-foot wingspan. However, it was built extremely rugged and it was possible to withstand enormous forces. The Bell X-1 was really designed the way it was because the designers at Bell examined a 50-caliber bullet flying at supersonic speed. And it was a very stable bullet aerodynamically speaking. And so they decided to build the X-1 in the form of a bullet with wings. And that is what the X-1 really turned out to be. It was only 31 feet long, it had a 28-foot wingspan. But the fuselage was shaped like a bullet. Hear Beeler dialup | broadband Beeler: The fuselage was shaped like a bullet, and the next thing we saw it had straight wings at about the mid-section and then the tail was elevated high, and there was a reason for all of this.

The bullet shape was because of munitions research done many years before. The straight wing, we advocated that basically because of flight tests we did with a World War II fighter. The tail was high—we wanted that to wave in the wake from the turbulence from the wing. And then I remember one comment said, "Yeah, that looks great—how about the pilot?" And he didn't have a bubble canopy anymore. He couldn't see to the rear. And he had this high slope, aerodynamically it was perfect, but he was stuck behind that. And the next thing is well, how does he get out? Well, by this door. And no seat ejection. And then if he climbs out successfully, and there is a wing right behind him that could make hamburger out of him, and if that didn't do it, it would take up and hit in to the tail. So that was kind of a joking type of a thing. But aerodynamically, particularly if it was going to be rocket-powered, it looked the most aerodynamically clean configuration I think that we could come up with. dialup | broadband Yeager: Basically the X-1 was a pure rocket.

It burned liquid oxygen and a mixture of five parts alcohol to one part water. You know, we'd been fooling around with jets. Jets engines didn't have the thrust to push the airplane into the region of the speed of sound or beyond. Hear Beeler dialup | broadband Beeler: Personally I had some reservations about a rocket, when you see them operate. Because it's like a small explosion. But it would get you to the area of interest a heck of a lot quicker and I'm not sure that we knew that much about a jet engine—the time to get there and all the aerodynamic problems of getting the air to the engine. The rocket appeared to be the simplest. Hear Goodlin dialup | broadband Goodlin: Well, I first operated the rocket engine in a special test cell at the Bell facility at Niagara Falls. And I must say that it was a very unnerving experience because the rocket engine made such an ungodly noise and shook the whole building to its foundations. And that was the most worrying thing about the entire X-1 program was the rocket engine. I wasn't worried about the air frame, but the rocket engine with its volatile fuels, which were liquid oxygen and ethyl alcohol, gave one some concern.

NOVA: What was your concern? Goodlin: That we would have an explosion in the rocket engine. dialup | broadband Beeler: Well, when you reach the—near the speed of sound, you develop what we call a shock wave. And behind that shock we call it a dead water region. In other words anything that tried to operate behind the shock would become extremely ineffective—almost no effectiveness at all. And this occurred in some of the fighter airplanes when they dove at very high speeds from World War II, and we knew it would happen on the X-1 and it did. But we had a backup in which we had installed an adjustable tail plane in which we could use that, you might say, as an emergency device in which it would give the pilot longitudinal control. And it worked. Hear Yeager dialup | broadband Yeager: When we got the airplane up to 94 percent of the speed of sound and I'm sitting out there and I decided to turn the airplane I pulled back on the control cock, nothing happened, the airplane just went the way it was headed. And I said, man, we've got a problem.

So I raked the rockets off, and jettisoned the liquid oxygen and alcohol and came down and landed and we got the engineers together and we had a little heart to heart talk. I said, "We've got a problem—because the airplane may pitch up or pitch down. I've lost the ability to control it." dialup | broadband Goodlin: As a matter of fact I was unhappy about the X-1 from the escape potential because it was very badly designed from that standpoint. The entrance hatch was on the side directly in front of a very sharp wing. And I felt that if one had to bail out of the airplane in an emergency, if one didn't hit the wing, one would hit the horizontal tail surface, and therefore I thought it was a very dangerous airplane. Hear Yeager dialup | broadband Yeager: Colonel Boyd, you know, sort of evaluated everything and ended up calling me in and said, you know, if you get the X-1 program we... pay attention and fly safe and don't bust your fanny. And I said, "Yes sir." And that was about the end of it.

And then about a month later, after I'd been assigned to the X-1 program he called me back in and said, "You know, we've got a problem." He said, "I wanted a pilot who had no dependents." I said, "Hey, Colonel Boyd," I said, "I, yeah, I'm married and I, I've got a little boy, and I, I think that makes me more careful." And that worked out. He said, "Well, OK, be careful." Hear Goodlin dialup | broadband Goodlin: I can't imagine why they got to the point of building the airplane without having proper escape provisions. I don't know how that ever happened, but I was not involved in designing the airplane. NOVA: Isn't that a sign that the, the project is being made more important than the lives of the pilots who are being asked to test it out? Goodlin: Of course. But this happens all the time in the military-industrial complex. NOVA: So did it make you feel almost like a pawn in the game? Goodlin: Well, I think at that stage in my life I wasn't thinking about analyzing the military-industrial complex. Today I do.

But at that time I was just a, a very eager adventurer, and I loved flying. And being involved in the hottest aviation project in the world causes one to overlook the basic fundamentals, such as pilot safety. NOVA: What about the dangers in flying this plane? Hear Yeager dialup | broadband Yeager: That's immaterial. Duty above all else. See, if you have no control over the outcome of something, forget it. I've learned that in combat. You know, you know somebody's going to get killed, you just hope it isn't you. But you've got a mission to fly and you fly. And the same way with the X-1. When I was assigned to the X-1 and, and was flying it I gave no thought to the outcome of whether the airplane would blow up or something would happen to me. It wasn't my job to think about that. It was my job to do the flying. dialup | broadband Goodlin: Well, it was a very exciting experience as you know. The X-1 was carried aloft in the bomb bay of a B-29.

And the procedure of going down the ladder and crawling into the X-1 at 8,000 feet and then sealing the door and being carried still higher to 28,000 feet, it was rather exciting, you know. I had no apprehension about it because we had no rocket fuel on board. And so when we got to altitude and went through the normal procedure of countdown and here I was in a very tiny cockpit and it was very dark, and all of a sudden when the X-1 was released from the B-29 I was in bright sunlight and I could hear nothing, it was so silent. And it took my eyes awhile to become accustomed to the daylight. And of course as one was without any power it was necessary to immediately examine where our position was in relation to the airport because one had to always stay within the landing distance, or gliding distance of the lake bed—and at the same time put the aircraft through the maneuvers, stall tests and the stability and control tests. And it was all very exciting but it went off extremely well. And I landed on the lake bed without any difficulty. It was a very delightful airplane to fly, as a matter of fact.

It had the, the handling characteristics of a fighter plane. And it was very agile. I had no complaints about the flying qualities of the airplane at all. The serious points on the X-1 were the rocket engine and those escape provisions. Hear Yeager dialup | broadband Yeager: Since the airplane was liquid rocket powered it only had two and a half minutes of power under full thrust. And consequently we decided to drop it from a B-29 mother-ship to conserve fuel. And that's the way every flight, with the exception of one, was launched from a B-29 or a 35... at around 25,000 feet. After drop, clear of the B-29 you'd fire off one, two or three or four chambers of the rocket motor. They were not throttle-able. You could just select the chambers either on or off, and you ran it until it ran out of fuel. And then you dead sticked into, into Roger's Dry Lake. Hear Goodlin dialup | broadband Goodlin: So then when the drop took place, one would sort of count to ten and hit the rocket engine control.

And we had four positions on the rocket engine for each rocket chamber. And to fire up one rocket. And of course the first time I did it, it was like being hit in the back with a lead boot. And the aircraft accelerated very, very rapidly. And of course as one increased the thrust by adding more rocket positions—actuating more rocket positions—well, the aircraft could go very fast indeed, and quickly leave behind the B-29 and the chase plane. And of course the first time I did that, why shortly after I accelerated, the fire warning light came on. And that caused the adrenaline to flow. And so I immediately shut off the rocket motor and called Dick Frost on the radio, who was flying the chase plane, and asked him if he could see any fire—that my fire warning light had come on. And of course he was way behind me and said he couldn't see any evidence of fire. But after I had slowed down, why he could pull up behind me and he could still see no evidence of fire, but my fire warning light was still on. So I dumped the rest of the fuel and went back to the landing area and set the airplane down.

And sure enough we had sustained a rather serious fire in the engine compartment. NOVA: When the fire warning light came on, describe your feelings. Goodlin: Well, it's a rather hopeless feeling because one can't see behind from the X-1 cockpit. And so one can only assume the worst, that there's a fire raging there. And so all I could do was wait until Frost could pull up behind and tell me that there was no, absolutely no fire visible. But obviously one thinks all sorts of things, and of course I was concerned because of the lack of escape provisions in the airplane. dialup | broadband Yeager: The flight, October 14, fell on a Tuesday. And I think Glennis, my wife and I, were over at Pancho's having dinner, and we went horseback riding. I ended up breaking a couple of ribs when the horse hit a fence and tumbled.

And when Monday come along, I got Jack Ridley and said, I've got a problem, I've got a couple of broken ribs, I can't—I don't think I can close the door with my right side, my right arm, and he, that's when he got the broomstick and I stuck it in with my left arm and closed it. And once we found that out, as far as getting into the airplane—it was very, oh, painful, because you have to bend up double to slide in. Once I got in it was no problem. Hear Yeager dialup | broadband Yeager: We didn't—we had no idea anything was going to happen. There was some indication on the previous Friday's flight that we had a very large error in our Mach meter. Otherwise we were indicating about 9.3, or .94 Mach number which was 94 percent of the speed of sound. There's some indication when NACA reduced the data from our instrumentation in the airplane that we're going a lot faster than indicated. And there was some, a little bit of excitement that said, hell, we, it looks like we've, we've been up to about 99 percent of the speed of sound.

And we still are in buffeting and the airplane is shaking quite a bit. You know, they weren't sure, because you, you're in an area where very little is known. They had no wind tunnel data, nothing, and everything was trial and error. And there was some indication that we had been going faster than we had thought. But we had no idea what was going to happen on the next flight. And when we got the airplane up to oh, about 96 percent of the speed of sound indicated, that was almost Mach 1. And when we went a little faster the Mach meter went off the scale. And ah, when it did all the buffeting smoothed out, because of the supersonic flow of the whole airplane. And even I knew we had gotten above the speed of sound. And I let it accelerate on out to about 1.06 or 1.07, seven percent above the speed of sound, and the airplane flew quite well. And I got some elevator effectiveness back, but not very much. Hear Beeler dialup | broadband Beeler: And then, The best I remember now, we knew the rocket was on, and we really didn't get anything back from Chuck.

You'd have to look at the telemeter data if we did. But as far as us listening, the next thing is that Chuck says, I think he did make a remark on his longitudinal control, I forgot. But the next thing my Mach meter jumped. And then at that time we got a bang. And personally, I have to say, I didn't know anything about bangs. I didn't know anything about it. Someone may say they knew about it from gunshots and that sort of thing, but to people around there, we got a bang. Hear Yeager dialup | broadband Yeager: Your emotions on something like that—you're too busy staying on top of the dome regulators and watching the chamber pressures and doing everything you're supposed to. And you might say I was a little bit disappointed it didn't blow up. That's about the only way to say—hell, it's a piece of cake. dialup | broadband Yeager: A lot of the news media were digging, you know, and I'm sure the intelligence people from the Soviet Union and the French and the British were all digging. Then after about seven months, you know, we satisfied their digging.

We released the fact that we had flown faster than the speed of sound. That, you know, that satisfied their digging. What they didn't know was how we had done it. Hear Beeler dialup | broadband Beeler: When Chuck made that supersonic flight it opened up a big wide door and everybody could jump in with all these applications. And that was one—that probably is the biggest impact as far as the world economy—people in one world type of thing. Hear Yeager dialup | broadband Yeager: Obviously the reason we kept it classified was to keep the rest of the world from finding out about a flying tail that's necessary to control the airplane through the speed of sound. It resulted in a kill ratio of 10 to 1 between the F-86 and the MiG 15. That one simple thing, of putting a flying tail on the F-86, because we knew that it would dive to the region of the speed of sound, and it pitted it against the MiG 15 in Korea, in 1951, '52, and '53, and we had a kill ratio of 10 to one.

And when I flew the MiG 15 over there for the first time I was amazed, because it was a good airplane, just like the Hawker-Hunter was or the MD-452, that Dassault built for the French air force, but it didn't have a flying tail on it. Photos: (1,3) NOVA/WGBH Educational Foundation; (2) Aila Vainio; (4,6-11) AFFTC; (5) Chalmers H. "Slick" Goodlin. The Speed of Sound in Air The Speed of Sound in Air THE SPEED OF SOUND IN AIR After reading this section you will be able to do the following: Discuss the relationship between the speed of sound and speed of light. Describe what the sound barrier is. Questions What conclusion can you draw about the speed of sound relative to the speed of light? Sound and speed If you have ever been to a baseball game or sat far away from the stage during a concert, you may have noticed something odd. You saw the batter hit the ball, but did not hear the crack of the impact until a few seconds later.

Or, you saw the drummer strike the drum, but it took an extra moment before you heard it. This is because the speed of sound is slower than the speed of light, which we are used to seeing. The same thing is at work during a thunderstorm. Lightning and thunder both happen at the same time. We see the lightning almost instantaneously, but it takes longer to hear the thunder. Based on how much longer it takes to hear thunder tells us how far away the storm is. The longer it takes to hear the thunder, the farther the distance its sound had to travel and the farther away the storm is. The sound barrier The speed of sound through warm air at sea level has been measured at 346 meters per second or 0.346 km per second. That is the same as a car traveling about 780 miles per hour! Even most jet airplanes do not travel that fast. When a plane does go faster than speed of sound, it is said to break the sound barrier and a sonic boom is produced. On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager did just that.

In a small plane called the X-1, he was the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound and the listeners on the ground were the first to hear the loud shock wave of a sonic boom. Why do we see lightning before the thunder? The flash of light from lightning travels at about 300,000 kilometers per second or 186,000 miles per second. This is why we see it so much sooner than we hear the thunder. If lightning occurs a kilometer away, the light arrives almost immediately (1/300,000 of a second) but it takes sound nearly 3 seconds to arrive. If you prefer to think in terms of miles, it takes sound nearly 5 seconds to travel 1 mile. Next time you see lightning count the number of seconds before the thunder arrives, then divide this number by 5 to find out how far away the lightning is.

Breaking the sound barrier Back to home page click here BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER: FROM MACH 1 TO MACH 10 Contents Further Reading INTRODUCTION Ever since the Wright brothers made the first heavier than air flight on 17 December 1903, man has attempted to fly faster and faster. It was long appreciated that breaking through the sound barrier would present a formidable challenge. The Wright brothers' "Flyer" in Washington's National Air & Space Museum But what exactly is the speed of sound? In fact, it does not have a precise value. The actual speed of sound varies depending on the altitude above sea level because sound travels at slightly different speeds at different temperatures and the temperature varies according to altitude. At sea level, the speed of sound is about 761 miles per hour (1,225 kilometers per hour). At 20,000 feet (6,096 meters), the speed of sound is 660 miles per hour (1,062 kilometers per hour). The speed of sound is commonly refered to as Mach 1, named after the 19th century Austrian physicist Ernst Mach [for biographical details click here ].

Less than Mach 0.8 is said to be subsonic, while Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.2 is said to be transonic. Mach 1.2 to Mach 5.0 is described as supersonic, while speeds greater than Mach 5.0 are characterised as hypersonic. MACH 1 The first flight at faster than the speed of sound occurred on 14 October 1947. The aircraft was the Bell X-1 and the pilot was Captain Charles Yeager. Technically the speed of sound had probably been broken before that by several Second World War aircraft. Some British and American fighters may have unintentionally exceeded the speed of sound in an evasive dive and there are unconfirmed reports that the German Me 262 jet fighter managed to break the sound barrier. In November 1945, a British jet fighter the Gloster Meteor set a new official world speed record of 606.25 mph. It was two years later before the sound barrier was broken by an American aircraft the Bell X-1. Test pilot 'Chuck' Yeager named the aircraft 'Glamorous Glennis' after his wife.

It was painted bright orange because it was thought that this would help the camera and chase aircraft tracking the flight (it was later found that white was a better colour for these purposes). The X-1 was taken up to 20,000 feet slung in the bomb bay of a Boeing B-29 and then released above the Mojave desert in California. The West Virginian pilot of the X-1 'Chuck' Yeager was a Second World War fighter ace who had turned to test flying. Two days before the fateful flight, he had ridden a horse into a gate and cracked two ribs. This made climbing down the ladder from the B-29 into the cockpit of the X-1 - an operation performed at 7,000 feet - extremely painful. Also it necessitated the use of an improvished piece of broomstick in order to enable him to use it as a lever to lock the cockpit door from the inside. It was Yeager's 13th flight in the X-1 and the 50th flight by the aircraft. This time he broke through the sound barrier, the precise speed achieved being Mach 1.015.

In his autobiography, Yeager later commented: "I thought I was seeing things! We were flying supersonic! And it was as smooth as a baby's bottom: Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade." The flight was described in the book "The Right Stuff" and depicted in the film of the book [for review click here ]. This was the time of the Cold War and the Americans did not want the Russians to know too much about their military capability, so amazingly news of the breaking of the sound barrier was withheld from the world for over eight months. Although "Aviation Week" leaked the news in December 1947, the Air Force did not confirm it until June 1948. A few months later, the first British aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound was the DH 108 Swallow on 9 September 1948. Today the Bell X-1 that first the National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC. The Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis" in Washington's National Air & Space Museum In fact, there were three X-1s and the aircraft eventually reached a speed of Mach 1.46.

Link: Men of the X-1 click here In 1951, test pilot Bill Bridegman flew a Douglas Skyrocket to Mach 1.88. Today, of course, modern fighter jets routinely excceed the speed of sound. In the book "The Cutting Edge", an F-14 pilot is quoted as follows: "A shock wave forms on the aircraft when it reaches supersonic speeds. From the front of the plane, the shock wave appears as a circle, but from the back and sides, it looks like very sharp spikes coming off the plane. It is a rare and spectacular sight, only visible in humid weather. Usually the planes are up too high when supersonic for a visible vapor wave, and since you can't fly supersonic around populations, very few people have caught it stateside. When you go supersonic, you don't feel a thing. It's not the Chuck Yeager story anymore. Planes that are designed to go supersonic go right through 'the number' without a blink. The airplane is as comfortable to fly at landing speeds as it is supersonic.

Things just happen faster." As aircraft approach the speed of sound, an interesting phenemomen occurrs in respect of air movement over the wings. This is known as the Prandtl-Glauert singularity and makes for some impressive photographs. Links: Photos of American military aircraft breaking the sound barrier click here click here click here click here MACH 2 The first flight at more than twice the speed of sound occurred on 20 November 1953. The aircraft was the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket and the pilot was Scott Crossfield. Crossfield was carried to 32,000ft by a United States Navy B-29 Superfortress bomber and he then climbed the rocket-powered aircraft to 72,000ft, before diving to 62,000ft and achieving Mach 2.005 (1,291mph). Only three weeks later, on 12 December 1953, the record was smashed again. The aircraft was the Bell X-1A and the pilot was again 'Chuck' Yeager. In fact, Yeager took the aircraft to Mach 2.44 (1,650 mph).

However, he then experienced a high speed phenomenon known as roll-coupling. The aircraft went completely out of control and tumbled down for 36,000 feet. Yeager was knocked semi-conscious but managed to regain control of the aircraft in time to land it safely. Concorde was the first civilian aircraft to fly at twice the speed of sound in September 1973. MACH 3 The first flight at faster than three times the speed of sound occurred on 27 September 1956. The aircraft was the Bell X-2 and the pilot was Captain Milburn Apt. The Bell X-2 was launched from a specially-modified Boeing B-50 at 31,800 feet. It achieved a speed of Mach 3.196 (2,094 mph). However, the flight then encountered problems known as inertia coupling and Apt jettisoned the cockpit capsule. For some reason, he was unable to use his parachute and was killed - it was his first flight in the X-2. The aircraft itself crashed of course and was scrapped.

MACH 4 The first flight at faster than four times the speed of sound occurred on 7 March 1961. The aircraft was the North American X-15 and the pilot was Captain Robert White. The X-15 was released from the wing of a specially-modified Boeing B-52. The actual speed achieved on this flight was Mach 4.43 (2,905 mph). The North American X-15 in Washington's National Air & Space Museum MACH 5 The first flight at faster than five times the speed of sound occurred on 23 June 1961. The aircraft was again the North American X-15 and the pilot was again Robert White. The actual speed achieved on this flight was Mach 5.27 (3,603 mph). MACH 6 The first flight at faster than six times the speed of sound occurred on 9 November 1961. The aircraft was the North American X-15A-2 and the pilot was once again Robert White. The actual speed achieved was Mach 6.04 (4,093 mph).

A new world speed record was set on 3 October 1967 when an X-15A-2 flown by William J Knight achieved Mach 6.70 (4,520 mph). This record stood for the next 35 years. MACH 7 The first flight at seven times the speed of sound occurred on 27 March 2004. The aircraft was the X-43A which was unpiloted. In fact, although the media at the time widely reported the flight as achieving Mach 7, subsequent assessment revealed that the new speed record was Mach 6.83 (5,060 mph). The 12-foot long X-43A was flown to a height of 100,000 feet over California by a modified Boeing B-52 bomber. It was then dropped and a revolutionary ramjet-scramjet engine came into action for a mere 11 seconds. This was enough to take the experimental craft to its record speed. It then went through a series of manoeuvres for six minutes before it made a planned splash-down in the ocean. It was not recovered because of the cost.

In a normal jet engine, fan blades compress the air. However, in the scramjet, the combustion of hydrogen fuel in a stream of air is compressed by the high speed of the aircraft. Since a scramjet only starts to work at about six times the speed of sound, the X-43A was initially accelerated by a Pegasus rocket. In the course of its 11 seconds of power, the X-41A travelled about 15 miles. The Wright brothers first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. That's progress for you. MACH 10 The first flight at ten times the speed of sound occurred on 16 November 2004. Again the aircraft was the unpiloted X-43A. In fact, although the media at the time widely reported the flight as achieving Mach 10 (around 6,800 mph), it was probably somewhat short of this and the precise speed awaits detailed analysis of the test results. This flight ended the X-43A programme.

The first aircraft had to be destroyed in flight in 2001, the second reached almost Mach 7 in March 2004, and the third achieved the Mach 10 record in November 2004. The $250M (�138M) project has now been shelved. Links: Dryden Flight Research Center click here CONCLUSION The two decades from 1947 to 1967 were times of immense accomplishment as man went from Mach 1 to Mach 6. Now, in the course of 2004, an unmanned craft has taken the record to Mach 10. It is an astonishing achievment. Is this the end of the story? Dr Alan Paull, leader of a scramjet group at the University of Queensland in Australia, hopes to extend his present programme to contemplate scramjet engine tests between Mach 8 and Mach 12. Theoretically, the 'envelope' within which scramjet travel is efficient is between Mach 5 and Mach 15. So, watch this space ... Meanwhile I received this comment on this essay from Mike Waters: "Thank you for a fascinating article on high speed flight!

I do have one quibble though; the Space Shuttle enters the atmosphere at about Mach 18! NASA may call is a 'lumbering truck', but in fact it out performs every aircraft ever made!" FURTHER READING "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979) "Yeager" by General Chuck Yeager & Leo Janos (Bantam Books, 1985) "The X-Planes: X-1 To X-31" by Jay Miller (Aerofax, 1988) ROGER DARLINGTON Chuck Yeager: First Person to Break the Sound Barrier Chuck Yeager: First Person to Break the Sound Barrier By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | June 11, 2014 04:28am ET MORE Chuck Yeager continued to act as a flight consultant for the air force until his last flight on October 14, 1997.

Credit: Air Force Test Center History Office Chuck Yeager was an American test pilot who was the first person to break the sound barrier — the point where a speeding object (such as an airplane) passes the speed of sound. Yeager made his history-setting flight on Oct. 14, 1947 in an airplane he dubbed Glamorous Glennis, after his wife. The Bell X-1 rocket plane (which today hangs in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum) passed Mach 1 following a drop from a B-29 airplane. The monumental "top secret" event was kept classified until 1948, but once it hit the public airwaves, Yeager became a celebrity. He also received a prestigious aviation award called the Collier Trophy, which called his flight the greatest achievement in aviation since the Wright brothers first took flight in 1903. War fighting and escape Yeager had a colorful aviation career long even before breaking the Mach barrier. Born in 1923 in a small town near Hamlin, West Virginia, Yeager grew up working on his father's pickup trucks, according to Yeager's website.

His high school graduation in 1941 took place just six months before the United States entered World War II that December. By that point, Yeager was a young member of the Army Air Corps. He was tapped for flight training in July 1942, and quickly distinguished himself among his peers. "He had remarkable 20/10 eyesight, tremendous physical coordination, and an uncanny ability to stay focused in stressful situations. Those traits coupled with a competitive streak and his understanding of machinery caught the attention of his instructors," his website stated. Yeager received his pilot wings in 1943 and served in WWII, flying 64 combat missions for 270 hours in Europe. He was shot down on March 5, 1944, over Bordeaux, France, but with the assistance of French resistance movement the Maquis, Yeager made it back to neutral territory a few weeks later. USAF Capt. Charles E. Yeager (shown standing with the Bell X-1 supersonic rocket plane) became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound in level flight on Oct. 14, 1947.

Credit: United States Air Force Archive Breaking the barrier Following the war, one of Yeager's assignments as an assistant maintenance officer in the fighter section at the Flight Test Division in Wright Field, Ohio. Yeager's website describes the location as "the center of Army Air Forces R and D [research and development]", and said his main assignment was to fly the fighters being developed there. His flight skills got him some attention: he was asked to fly in air shows and also took part in service trials at Edwards Air Force Base (then called Muroc Army Air Field). Then in 1947, the young Yeager was picked to try to break the sound barrier . Yeager's work on Glamorous Glennis began with three glide flights, then powered flights starting Aug. 29. He had trouble keeping the plane straight due to pitch problems, particularly on a flight Oct. 10 where he briefly lost pitch control completely. Another crew member suggested that Yeager should move the X-1's horizontal tail very slightly to keep his airplane under control. On his next flight, Oct. 14, Yeager tried out the tail idea at 0.83, 0.88 and 0.92 Mach and found the method worked.

"At 42,000 feet, [Yeager] relit a third chamber of his engine," his website stated. "The X-1 Glamorous Glennis rapidly accelerated to 0.98 Mach and then, at 43,000 feet, the needle on his Machmeter jumped off the scale." The speed of sound, Mach 1, is about 758 mph (1,220 kph) at sea level, and decreases with altitude.) After the test Yeager continued his flight testing duties for many years after breaking the sound barrier, including testing Lockheed’s XF-104, an aircraft that was capable of going double the speed of sound. But Yeager had a couple of near misses as he tested the aircraft, which was always a risky endeavor as he was among the first to fly these types. In December 1953, Yeager turned off his Bell X-1A engine as planned at 76,000 feet. The aircraft began to roll and yaw, then quickly fell out of control despite Yeager's attempts to correct the issue.

Yeager managed to pull out safely at 25,000 feet — after falling more than 50,000 feet. Ten years later, Yeager piloted a Lockheed NF-104 aircraft that crashed, but he managed to parachute out safely. "The veteran Air Force pilot suffered burns on his face and neck, apparently from the ignition of pure oxygen in his mask, but otherwise was not injured seriously," the L.A. Times reported at the time . The crash was depicted in both the book and movie versions of "The Right Stuff." (Yeager played a small part in the movie, as the bartender at Pancho Barnes’ Happy Bottom Riding Club.) Yeager's last active duty flight was on Feb. 25, 1975, in an F-4C Phantom II, but he remained an active consulting test pilot for decades after that. In 2012, the then 89-year-old Yeager flew in the back seat of the F-15D to re-enact the 65th anniversary of his record-setting flight.

Editor's Recommendations Faster Than The Speed Of Sound: The Sonic Boom Of Aircraft | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media Indiana Public Media Choose which station to support! Indiana Public Media | WFIU - NPR | WTIU - PBS Choose which station to support! A Moment of Science Faster Than The Speed Of Sound: The Sonic Boom Of Aircraft By Barbara Bolz In October of 1947, U.S. Air Force Pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly a plane faster than the speed of sound. Loading... Photo: guillermomadrid (flickr) When planes like this one exceed the speed of sound, shock waves form causing a sonic boom when they hit the ground When a speed boat moves through water, it creates waves you can see. Planes create similar waves in the air, which you can hear. Sound Waves And Airplanes As a plane travels, it compresses air molecules in front of it, creating waves that spread in all directions. These waves travel at the speed of sound and are known as sound waves . When a plane itself approaches the speed of sound, which is roughly 768 miles per hour, it begins to move as fast as the sound waves it is creating.

When the plane moves faster than its own sound waves, it forces those waves to pile up one on top of another. Shock Waves This concentration of sound waves becomes what is known as a shock wave . Shock waves are powerful waves that travel in all directions, including toward the ground. At each location where shock waves hit the ground, we hear a sonic boom. The sonic boom is not just a one-time result of breaking the sound barrier. Because the plane is creating shock waves the entire time it flies at supersonic speeds, sonic booms can be heard the entire time as well. Next time on A Moment of Science, we will look at how the size and altitude of a plane influence the intensity and duration of the sonic boom. Share Chuck Yeager retraces history in the sky, breaking the sound barrier -- again - CNN.com Chuck Yeager retraces history in the sky, breaking the sound barrier -- again By the CNN Wire Staff Updated 11:54 AM ET, Mon October 15, 2012 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

JUST WATCHED Chuck Yeager re-enacts milestone 02:37 Story highlights Chuck Yeager was the first test pilot to break the sound barrier In 1947, he flew past Mach 1 after being dropped from a B-29 bomber at 45,000 feet Yeager said he "laid down a pretty good sonic boom" over Edwards Air Force Base Chuck Yeager retraced history on Sunday, 65 years to the minute, as the first test pilot to break the sound barrier, taking to the skies once again to fly faster than the speed of sound. The 89-year-old Yeager broke the sound barrier in a U.S. Air Force F-15 at 10:24 a.m. over the Mojave Desert, the same location where he first flew past Mach 1 on October 14, 1947, the military said in a statement. Yeager, flying in the F-15 with an Air Force captain, told CNN late Sunday that he hit Mach 1.3 and "laid down a pretty good sonic boom over Edwards" Air Force Base.

Yeager's reenactment of his historic flight came the same day that Austrian Felix Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier as a skydiver, jumping from a balloon at the edge of space to make the 23-mile journey. While Yeager's sound-breaking flight was news in military and aircraft manufacturing circles, his popularity soared when Tom Wolfe detailed Yeager's flight in the book "The Right Stuff" and its subsequent film adaptation. "I really appreciated the Air Force giving me a brand new F-15 to fly," Yeager told CNN. Today, fighter jets can easily break the sound barrier. In fact, Yeager's flight Sunday did it at an altitude of about 33,000 feet, according to a statement provided by the Air Force. But in 1947, the golden age of flight, Yeager was dropped in an experimental rocket-propelled Bell X1 jet from a B-29 bomber at an altitude of 45,000 feet. "That's the only way we could do it," he said. "It took the British, French and the Soviet Union another five years to find out that trick.

It gave us a quantum jump" in aviation advancement, he said. On Sunday, Yeager took off from Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas in the second seat, the one behind the pilot, though he said he was flying the F-15 when it broke the sound barrier over Edwards. "We had to keep it below Mach 1.4. If you want to go Mach 2, you start breaking glasses and cracking roofs," he said. But Yeager hardly sounded disappointed. His final aerial move, he told CNN, was a fly-by, buzzing the tower, at Nellis. Breaking the Sound Barrier | The Greatest Moments in Flight Breaking the Sound Barrier | The Greatest Moments in Flight By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor | July 23, 2012 04:43pm ET MORE Chuck Yeager and the X-1 research plane that broke the sound barrier. It can be seen today at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Credit: Air Force Test Center History Office This is part of a SPACE.com series of articles on the Greatest Moments in Flight, the breakthrough events that paved the way for human spaceflight and its next steps: asteroid mining and bases on the moon and Mars. A booming thunder roared across the clear skies of the Mojave Desert on Oct. 14, 1947, as U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager nudged an experimental rocket-powered plane faster than the speed of sound. Though only a handful of people realized it at the time, an aviation record had been set. In 1935, a simplified explanation of the challenges of supersonic flight led to the creation of the term "sound barrier," which seemed to imply a physical wall that could not be overcome. Bullets and cannon balls had exceeded the speed of sound for hundreds of years, but the question loomed as to whether or not a plane—or a man—could withstand the pressures that accompanied it. The U.S. Air Force set out to answer this looming question. Sponsored message: The plane The Bell X-1 broke the sound barrier with Col. Chuck Yeager at the controls on Oct. 14, 1947.

Credit: NASA A bullet-shaped plane, the Bell X-1 (originally designated the XS-1), was modeled after a .50 caliber machine gun bullet, an object known to be stable as it exceeded the speed of sound. Four rocket engines propelled the X-1, and it was built to absorb 18 times the force of gravity. Unlike most planes, it didn't take off from the ground, but was instead dropped from the belly of a B-29 Superfortress, rapidly accelerating in the air on only a few minutes worth of fuel before gliding back to the dry lakes below. The historic plane, nicknamed the "Glamorous Glennis" for Yeager's wife, slowly approached the sound barrier over the course of nine flights. Muroc Air Force Base—now known as Edwards Air Force Base—in the empty southern California desert provided an ideal spot for testing a variety of experimental vehicles, including the X-1. The pilot The man who would go down as the most famous test pilot in American history was born in West Virginia on Feb. 13, 1923. Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager enlisted as a private in the U.S.

Army Air Corps at the age of 18 and served in World War II, where he flew 64 combat missions. In 1945, he was assigned as a maintenance officer to the Flight Test Division at Wright Field, Ohio, flight-testing the planes. Col. Albert Boyd, in charge of the test program for the Air Force, invited him to become a test pilot, and Yeager accepted, transferring to Muroc to enroll in the Flight Performance School. It was there that Yeager was selected to be the first person to attempt to exceed the speed of sound. The flight Yeager's first test launch of the Glamorous Glennis took place on Aug. 29, 1947, with subsequent attempts increasing speed by two hundredths of a Mach number. Mach is a unit of measuring the speed of sound in a given medium; a plane traveling at .2 Mach moves at only two-tenths the speed of sound, while Mach 1 is equal to it.

(The speed of sound is about 758 miles (1,220 kilometers) per hour at sea level, and decreases with altitude.) Reaching .86 Mach on the sixth flight, the X-1 began to experience turbulence from the shock wave formed by the compression of the air. On the seventh flight, at Mach .94, Yeager lost the ability to control the plane's elevator, a problem since the shock waves caused the nose to pitch up and down. He cut the engines, dumped the fuel, and landed safely in the desert. Another pilot suggested using the horizontal stabilizer to correct the problem, and on-the-ground tests seemed to suggest the alternate method of control would work. Two days before his historic flight, Yeager was thrown from a horse while riding with his wife and broke two ribs. Knowing that he would never be allowed to fly, he traveled to a doctor off base and had them taped up. Unable to close and latch the side door by hand, he utilized a broom handle at the suggestion of a fellow pilot. On Oct. 14, 1947, Yeager and the X-1 were dropped from the B-29, and quickly accelerated away.

When the controls locked up, he successfully used the horizontal stabilizer to keep the plane stable. As the plane accelerated to Mach 1.06, controllers on the ground heard the first sonic boom . (The end of a bullwhip moves faster than the speed of sound. Some say the "crack" is a small sonic boom.) After exceeding the speed of sound, the buffeting decreased, creating a smooth short flight. The plane remained supersonic for approximately 20 seconds before Yeager turned off two of the four engines and slowly decelerated. The follow-up Chuck Yeager continued to act as a flight consultant for the air force until his last flight on October 14, 1997. Credit: Air Force Test Center History Office Yeager continued to fly experimental aircraft for the Air Force, and was appointed director of the Space School, NASA's precursor, where he trained astronauts to prepare for launch. He flew more than 120 combat missions in Vietnam. After 34 years in the military, he retired in 1975 at the rank of brigadier general, though he continued to serve as a consultant.

His last flight as a military consultant occurred 50 years to the day after he broke the sound barrier. In 1979, Tom Wolfe's best-selling nonfiction book, The Right Stuff, and the subsequent 1983 movie popularized Yeager's exploits to a generation too young to remember them. Yeager and his wife, Glennis, had four children before her death in 1990. He remarried in 2003. —Nola Taylor Redd Chuck Yeager Fast Facts - CNN.com Chuck Yeager Fast Facts CNN Library Updated 11:35 AM ET, Mon February 8, 2016 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Chuck Yeager gets into the back seat of a F-15 Sunday prior to reenacting his famous flight 65 years earlier in which he broke the sound barrier. Here's a look at the life of Chuck Yeager , the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Personal: Birth date: February 13, 1923 Birth place: Myra, West Virginia (grew up in Hamlin) Father: Albert Hal Yeager, a coal miner and gas driller Read More Mother: Susie Mae (Sizemore) Yeager Marriages: Victoria Scott D'Angelo (August 2003-present); Glennis Faye Dickhouse (February 26, 1945-December 22, 1990, her death) Children: with Glennis Dickhouse: Donald, Michael, Sharon, Susan Military Service: U.S. Air Force, 1941-1975, Brigadier General (Retired) Other Facts: The first supersonic pilot and has flown more than 200 different types of military aircraft. Trained many of the Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo astronauts at the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilots School. During World War II , Yeager shot down over a dozen German planes. He is credited twice with shooting down more than four planes in one day, October 12 and November 27, 1944. Flew combat missions in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

Created a foundation which helps finance youth pilot programs and college scholarships. Lawsuits between Yeager's children and himself and his second wife over money have fractured the family. The youngest child, Susan was ordered to repay close to $1 million in misappropriated funds under her control as his financial manager from 1990 through 2003. Timeline: September 12, 1941 - Enlists in the Army Air Corps and undergoes training as a flight mechanic. March 10, 1943 - Appointment as flight officer after receiving wings. His unit is sent to England in November. March 5, 1944 - At age 21, Yeager is shot down over German-occupied France on his 9th mission. He is wounded and then rescued by the French Resistance. After being smuggled into Spain and briefly imprisoned, he makes his way back to England. October 12, 1944 - Shoots down five German fighter planes in succession. November 27, 1944 - Shoots down four German fighter planes. 1946-1956 - Air Force flight school instructor and research test pilot.

October 14, 1947 - Flies the Glamorous Glennis, a Bell X-1 rocket plane named after his wife, to break the sound barrier, at Mach 1.06, over the Mojave Desert. October 10, 1948 - Flies a F-80 airplane over the Kanawha River in West Virginia during a boat regatta. Violating Air Force and FAA regulations, he flies under the South Side Bridge, does a roll and heads on to California. December 12, 1953 - Sets speed record of Mach 2.4, 1,650 mph. The record stands for three years. July 1962-1966 - Commandant of the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilots School, supervises pilot training for military personnel of the space program. December 10, 1963 - Ejects from a Lockheed Starfighter NF-104 experimental plane and sets a new record as the first pilot to eject in full compression gear under emergency conditions. His suit catches fire from the plane's debris during descent requiring extensive skin grafts for burns.

August 1969 - Promoted to brigadier general. June 1973 - Becomes director of the Air Force Inspection and Safety Center, Norton Air Force Base, California. March 1, 1975 - Retires from the Air Force, continues to consult as a test pilot. December 23, 1975 - Congress awards Yeager a special Silver Medal for bravery when breaking the sound barrier. The White House ceremony takes place a year later with President Ford. October 21, 1983 - "The Right Stuff" premieres with Sam Shepard playing the role of Yeager; breaking the sound barrier is the movie's opening scene. 1985 - Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan. October 14, 1997 - Commemorates the 50th anniversary of breaking the sound barrier by doing it again in an F-15 fighter. This is his last flight as an Air Force consultant. October 26, 2002 - Flies another Glamorous Glennis, an F-15 Eagle, to break the sound barrier at Mach 1.45.

This is to be his final sound barrier flight. April 2003 - Yeager's children file a lawsuit in California's Nevada County Superior Court regarding the handling of his revocable living trust. Yeager and his daughter Susan are co-trustees. March 30, 2006 - The referee judge rules in Chuck Yeager's favor against his children's lawsuit. November 2007 - Sues AT&T, claiming Cingular Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had used his name in a press release without his permission. August 22, 2008 - Yeager's children lose the appeal in California Appellate Court of the March 30, 2006 verdict. December 2009 - Files a civil lawsuit against Virgin America Inc. for using his name in their advertising without his permission. The airline sent an email to frequent flyers mentioning Yeager and Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin does not join in the litigation. Virgin America and Yeager reach an initial settlement in July 2011, and the settlement is enforced in 2012.

April 2010 - Speaks publicly for the first time of the October 10, 1948 Charleston South Side Bridge incident. Doing 500 mph, he flew under the bridge because he knew he had enough room to clear it. June 8, 2012 - Wins the lawsuit against AT&T and is awarded $135,000. October 14, 2012 - On the 65th anniversary of Yeager's flight to break the sound barrier, he rides along in a F-15 over the Mojave Desert, in a re-creation of his historic flight. Capt. David Vincent, based at Nellis AFB, pilots the F-15. Paid Partner Content

Question: Who, in 1947, was the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound?
Answer: Chuck Yeager