Chuck Yeager piloted supersonic flight - October 14, 1947

On this day in 1947, American test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio Welcome Back. I'm your host Eves, and you're
tuned into This Day in History Class, a show that
takes history and squeezes it into bite size stories. Today
is October nineteen. The day was October nine. American test

(00:28):
pilot Chuck Yeager piloted the first flight to go faster
than the speed of sound in a Bell X one aircraft.
By this point, attempts had already been made to break
the so called sound barrier. The UK's Ministry of Aviation
wanted to develop an aircraft that could achieve supersonic flight.
Motivated by secret intelligence of a German supersonic long range

(00:52):
bomber project, the British worked with Miles Aircraft to create
the prototype M fifty two, which was designed to go
up to one thousand miles per hour or one thousand,
six hundred nine kilometers per hour in level flight. The
M fifty two employed a lot of innovative technology and
its air frame design and construction, jet engine and flying controls,

(01:16):
but the project was canceled before it could claim the
supersonic record. A mock number indicates the speed of something
by comparing it to the speed of sound mach one
is about seven hundred and sixty miles per hour at
sea level. Since sound moves slower in cold air, the
speed required to break the sound barrier decreases higher in

(01:37):
the atmosphere. Other pilots like George schwartz Welch and Hans
Guido Mutka claimed to have broken the sound barrier before Gagor,
but their claims are not officially recognized because the flights
in question lacked adequate measuring equipment. The Bill X one
was a joint project between the National Advisory Committee for

(01:58):
Aeronautics later on as NASA and the U. S Air Force.
It was built by the Bill Aircraft Corporation. The US
and Bill Aircraft Company were given access to the research
and design of the M fifty two, and they used
that information to advance their project. The X one was

(02:18):
a rocket plane, or an aircraft that uses a rocket
engine for propulsion. It was originally called the X S one,
where the X S stood for Experimental Supersonic, but the
S was dropped early in the program. The X one
had a four chamber rocket engine that produced twenty six
thousand five new ends of static thrust instead of taking

(02:42):
off from the ground. It was dropped from the bomb
bay of a Boeing B twenty nine super Fortress, accelerated
quickly and then glide it to a landing. Yeager was
chosen to attempt to break the speed record after he
graduated from Flight Performance School in New Rock, California. His
first test launch of the X one, which he dubbed

(03:03):
Glamorous Glennys after his wife, was on August ninth, nineteen.
On each subsequent test launch leading up to his first
supersonic flight, he increased his speed. There were challenges. For instance,
he lost control of the plane's elevator in one flight
and had to cut the engines and dump the fuel.

(03:25):
But in October fourte the X one reached a speed
of seven hundred miles per hour or one thousand, one
hundred and twenty seven kilometers per hour. As he reached
mark one oh six, controllers on the ground heard the
sonic boom. The plane traveled at supersonic speed for about
twenty seconds before it decelerated, making Yeager the first to

(03:46):
travel faster than the speed of sound and level flight.
In March night, Yeager reached mark one four five in
the X one. Information about Yeager's flights was classified and
not review to the public until nineteen. The series of
X experimental projects, both crude and uncrude, continues today. The

(04:10):
Bell X one that Yeager flu is in the Smithsonian
Air and Space Museum. I'm Eves Jeff Coote and hopefully
you know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. Keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, and
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(04:31):
at this day at I heart media dot com. Thanks
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