Making History

By late 1947 the X-1 was ready to show what it could do. On October 14, 1947, Major Charles “Chuck” Yeager sat in the cockpit of the orange-painted X-1 air­plane, which he had named Glamorous Glennis for his wife. He had to be helped into his seat because he had two broken ribs from a horse-riding acci­dent. A B-29 lumbered down the run­way, with the X-1 locked to its belly, and slowly climbed to 25,000 feet (7,620 meters). Then the signal came— release! For a moment, the airplane appeared to drop like a stone. Major Yeager then switched on the rocket engine to burn, and the X-1 took off.

That day, the X-1 reached a speed of 679 miles per hour (1,093 kilometers per hour). At 42,000 feet (12,802 meters), this speed is equal to Mach 1.05, or just above the speed of sound. Yeager had become the first person to fly at supersonic speed in level flight.

A few days later, the X-1 rocketed to a height of 70,119 feet (21,372 meters), setting a new world altitude record. The X-1 flew seventy-eight missions, reaching a top speed of 957 miles an hour (1,540 kilometers per hour) in March 1948.

After the X-1

Chuck Yeager went on to test the X-1’s successor, the X-1 A. Flying the new rocket plane, he set a world speed record of 1,650 miles per hour (2,655 kilometers per hour) or Mach 2.4, on December 12, 1953.

Two later and more advanced models of the X-1 (the X-1B and X1-E) were used to study specific areas of high­speed flight, including thermal (or heat) effects and different wing designs, adding to the data about supersonic per­formance. The only casualty of the test program was the X-1D. The aircraft was destroyed in 1951 after it had to be jet­tisoned from its B-50 “mother plane” following an explosion.

The Bell X-1 was followed by air­planes that flew faster and higher still, such as the Douglas Skyrocket. The Skyrocket was the first to fly at Mach 2 (1953). The Bell X-2 broke the Mach 3 barrier in 1956. The North American X – 15 was the ultimate in rocket planes. Like its predecessor the X-1, the X-15 was also launched from beneath a bomber. It broke record after record, and in 1967 flew at Mach 6.7—4,534 miles per hour (7,295 kilometers per hour), flying so high it was almost in space.

SEE ALSO:

• Air and Atmosphere • Aircraft,

Experimental • Aircraft Design

• Altitude • Engine • Jet and Jet

Power • Supersonic Flight

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