How Chuck Yeager Broke The Sound Barrier In 1947 – SlashGear

Bell built three XS-1 test planes for the project. The 30 feet nine inches long, cylindrical fuselage was made of high-strength aluminum, and was shaped like a .50 caliber bullet because it was stable at supersonic speeds. It had a wingspan of 28 feet and was 10 feet 8.5 inches high, but the wings and tail were razor-thin to compensate for extreme aerodynamic forces. A barely moveable horizontal stabilizer allowed Yeager to control it ever so slightly.

Stuffed inside the relatively small plane were two propellant tanks made from steel, twelve nitrogen spheres (needed for fuel and cabin pressurization), a pressurized cockpit for Yeager, three pressure regulators, the retractable landing gear, a wing carry-through structure, a four-chambered 6,000-pound-thrust rocket engine, and over 500 pounds of special equipment needed to gather the all-important data of blasting through the invisible sound “barrier.”

Before Yeager made his historic flight, the XS-1 was put through its paces, making “dozens of preparatory flights,” all of which were dropped in-flight from either a Boeing B-29 or B-50 Superfortress aircraft. Its first glide test happened in early 1946 at Pinecastle Field in Florida, while the first powered test happened at Muroc in December 1946 — with Bell test pilot Chalmers Goodlin behind the stick.

Then, on October 14, 1947, with Captain Chuck Yeager in the cockpit of the christened “Glamorous Glennis” (named in honor of his wife) — he was dropped from a B-29 at 20,000 feet. Yeager took off, climbed to an altitude of 42,000 feet, and shot into history, reaching a speed of 700 miles per hour (Mach 1.06).