Chuck Yeager Re-Enacts the Historic Flight That Broke the Sound Barrier

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Chuck Yeager Re-Enacts the Historic Flight That Broke the Sound Barrier

Posted by samzenpus on Monday October 15, 2012 @12:49AM from the time-to-fly dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Seattle Times reports that exactly 65 years to the minute after becoming the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager flew in the back seat of an F-15 Eagle as it broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert — the same area where he first achieved the feat in 1947 while flying an experimental rocket plane. Asked by a young girl if he was scared during Sunday's flight, Yeager joked, 'Yeah, I was scared to death.' Yeager made the first supersonic flight in a rocket-powered, Bell X-1, known as the XS-1 for 'experimental, supersonic,' attached to the belly of a B-29 aircraft. Hiding the pain of broken ribs from a midnight horse race after a night of drinking at Pancho Barnes' Happy Bottom Riding Club, Yeager squeezed into the aircraft with no safe way to bail out. Soon after the rocket plane was released, Yeager powered it upward to about 42,000 feet altitude, then leveled off and sped to 650 mph, or Mach 1.07. Some aviation historians contend that American pilot George Welch broke the sound barrier before Yeager, while diving an XP-86 Sabre on October 1, 1947 and there is also a disputed claim by German pilot Hans Guido Mutke that he was the first person to break the sound barrier, on April 9, 1945, in a Messerschmitt Me 262. Yeager's flight was portrayed in the opening scenes of The Right Stuff, the 1983 movie, based on the book by Tom Wolfe that chronicles America's space race. For his part Yeager said nothing special was going through his mind at the time of the re-enactment. 'Flying is flying. You can't add a lot to it.'"

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Re-enacts? by EmagGeek · 2012-10-15 00:56 · Score: 4, Informative

Really?
No, sorry, it is not a re-enactment. He just went for a supersonic flight as a passenger.
1. Re:Re-enacts? by dywolf · 2012-10-15 04:31 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The X-1 was fully controlled by the pilot. Yeager, and more importantly his friend Jack Ridley, and the X-1 were the source of the all-moving tailplane that became essential to maintianing control of aircraft through the transonic and supersonic realms of flight. Prior to that invention the shockwave would overpower the controls leading to loss of control and crash.
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Re:Is this... by Seeteufel · 2012-10-15 01:14 · Score: 3, Informative

In 1941 the V2 rockets reached Mach5. In any case, supersonic flight was even possible with the French Concorde passenger aircraft.
Commemorative flight, not re-enactment by Hagaric · 2012-10-15 01:15 · Score: 4, Informative

Calling it a reenactment is just journalistic hyperbole.. As for the first to break the sound barrier, there are several contenders according to criteria.. Yaeger was the first to do it deliberately, measurably, in level flight, and survive. Geoffrey DeHavilland broke it in the DH108 but died in the process. The xf-86 prototype with George Welch almost certainly did it before him, but once again, in a barely-controlled dive. The same with all the other claims, they were not in control and they were lucky to survive, if they did.
1. Re:Commemorative flight, not re-enactment by tqk · 2012-10-15 02:37 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It is not, and never has been, a barrier; it's a hurdle.
  You're mistaken. Back then, approaching the speed of sound, every plane went into a phase of uncontrollable buffeting. The theory back then was any faster and any plane would break apart. Yeager's X-1 flight proved it wasn't true. Past the speed of sound, you fly faster than the turbulence and it's as smooth as silk.
  I'm glad to hear Chuck's still flying, and not in a liquid fueled bomb.
  
  --
  "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Disputed claims by Deadstick · 2012-10-15 01:51 · Score: 3, Informative

Most of those claims were based on what the pilot saw on the airspeed indicator. Trouble is, the reading on an ordinary ASI is meaningless from about Mach 0.9 up. A standard ASI senses the difference between the pitot and static air pressures; a Machmeter senses their ratio.
Re:Is this... by CohibaVancouver · 2012-10-15 02:18 · Score: 2, Informative

It's downfall was all the bitch and moaning about sonic booms over populated areas.
No, it's downfall was that, for the vast majority of people, Mach 0.74 in a 737 is fast enough for the price-point, and people with deep pockets would rather pay for luxury...

http://tinyurl.com/8tvmthd

...not speed.
Re:Disputed claims by osu-neko · 2012-10-15 03:00 · Score: 4, Informative

- The Me262 was a jet fighter/bomber. WWII plane. As cited in a post above, some claim it broke the sound barrier in levelled flight.
No. No one (who knows anything) claims the Me 262 broke the sound barrier in level flight. It was a jet, but not a very fast one; it's not even remotely possible it could achieve that speed in level flight. One German pilot claimed to have done it in a 90 degree nosedive, but he was doubtless fooled by erroneous elevated readings from his pitot-based airspeed indicator that can often occur at high speeds. If he'd actually made it to trans-sonic speeds in an Me 262 airframe, he'd have ripped the wings off.

--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."