On that day, a 24-year-old air force captain climbed into the cockpit of an experimental,
bright yellow-orange, bullet shaped rocket plane. The pilot - and the experimental aircraft he
was flying - were about to make history.
Dubbed the X-1, the plane was not your average airplane. It measured a little over 30 feet in
length and slightly higher than 10 feet in height and had room for just one passenger. It could
not take off on its own. It was "carried" into the air by a much larger, 4-engine B-29 aircraft. At
full thrust, the X-1's four rocket engines had enough fuel to last a little over 3 minutes. And
since it had no landing gear, the X-1 was designed to glide to a landing.
This experimental, fixed wing, rocket-powered craft was developed for one thing and one
thing only -- speed.
THE NEED FOR SPEED | 1
The date was October 14, 1947.
When you consider that a rocket plane can reach 4,520
miles per hour today, Yeager's accomplishment doesn't
seem like such a big feat. But back in those days, aviation
experts believed that man was unable to fly faster than
the speed of sound. Many were certain that breaking the
sound barrier would result in total loss of control (at the
low end) or disintegration of the plane and potentially
death of the occupant (on the high side). Chuck Yeager
became the first person to prove that humans could
effectively cross that barrier. More importantly, it paved
the way for man's eventual journey into space.
Note: It was sixty-five years to the day, on Oct. 14, 2012,
that Yeager commemorated his original feat high above
California's Mojave Desert, this time flying in the back
seat of an F-15 Eagle as it broke the sound barrier at more
than 30,000 feet.
