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Chuck Yeager Re-Enacts the Historic Flight That Broke the Sound Barrier
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.'"
...got a stick of Beemans?
Really?
No, sorry, it is not a re-enactment. He just went for a supersonic flight as a passenger.
'Yeah, I was scared to death.'
Joking or not, once you have been Pilot in Command, when you fly with someone else, you do get kind of twitchy. Kind of like riding in a car with a newly licensed 16 year old. When YOU are not in control, things seem different and possibly scary.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Interesting, if that's so then exactly 65 years minus 1 day after the first human to cross the sound barrier in an airplane, we have the first human to cross the sound barrier without airplane (yesterday)!
There is a well established legend (story, rumor?) that Yeager's supersonic flight was beaten by a couple of weeks by the F-86 prototype doing flight testing. The pilot, George Welch, was a test pilot for North American aviation and was doing tests including high speed dives before the X-1's supersonic flight. The aircraft was not instrumented to prove it at the time, but later it was conclusively shown that the F-86 would go supersonic in dives. Supposedly the Air Force hushed it all up at the time. Fascinating note in aviation history -- http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0113.shtml.
In 1941 the V2 rockets reached Mach5. In any case, supersonic flight was even possible with the French Concorde passenger aircraft.
There were a few pilots during and shortly WWII who claimed to have gone more than Mach 1.0. Some said the P-51 was capable of it in a power dive. Of course it was often fatal which makes Yeager's willingness to make the flight all the more impressive.
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.
Most pilots from that era (and pretty much every era) were dicks. Gus Grissom made Yeager look like a goddamned saint. They got the job done, though.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Your wording about the Concorde is really odd here. The purpose of the Concorde was supersonic passenger flight. It's downfall was all the bitch and moaning about sonic booms over populated areas.
Interesting trivia point... F-15 is older than I am. First F-15 flight was a mere 27 years after Yeagers flight, and was also 38 years ago. So F-15's are so old, they're closer to the days of Yeagers first flight than they are to close to today. That must trip out F-15 pilots, its theoretically possible that a F-15 could have been flown by three generations of the same family... bomber and transport pilots are used to that but traditionally fighter planes don't serve for 4 decades.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Don't know the man personally, so I won't speak as to his actual charachter. I will say this. "A man who doesn't admit to being scared at certain times of his life is either a fool or a liar."
In 1941 the V2 rockets reached Mach5.
And rifle bullets broke the sound barrier centuries before that. So what? Like the V2, nobody was onboard. The point of Chuck's flight was not that a "thing" broke the sound barrier, but that a human did.
In any case, supersonic flight was even possible with the French Concorde passenger aircraft.
The Concorde didn't exist in 1947.
supersonic flight was even possible with the French Concorde
Supersonic flight was also possible with the British Concorde. But I suppose this is less surprising.
If that isn't proof he's sporting a huge pair and was one tough son of a bitch, I don't know what is.
These guys were awesome.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Most pilots from that era (and pretty much every era) were dicks.
When you have a job where your survival depends on the competence of other people, normal social courtesies like tact, circumspection and compromise can get you killed.
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...
...not speed.
http://tinyurl.com/8tvmthd
Most pilots from that era (and pretty much every era) were dicks.
Well, yeah. You have to be a complete fucking lunatic to be a test pilot, especially back then when aerodynamics was poorly understood and deaths were common.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Surely you mean a Miles M52? ;-)
They do if they're that good. Granted, it's not the best plane in the sky today, but it's still one of the best.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Yeager did it in level flight - a huge difference
Yeager's plane was called "X-1" and Welch's "F-86"--huge difference.
FTFY
Set your phasers on "funky"!
This would have been a lot better if he just made jet noises, and a plane shape out of his hand, and after going.. boom and thrusting his hand forward exclaimed.. "And that's how I broke the sound barrier!"
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
And rifle bullets broke the sound barrier centuries before that.
You mean those lead musket balls and iron gun shots propelled with black powder? I don't think so, or at least I doubt that happened with any sort of regularity.
Ezekiel 23:20
It may be more routine than you think.
Two nights before the scheduled date for the flight, he broke two ribs while riding a horse. He was so afraid of being removed from the mission that he went to a veterinarian in a nearby town for treatment and told only his wife, as well as friend and fellow project pilot Jack Ridley about it. Yeager in front of the Bell X-1, which, as with all of the aircraft assigned to him, he named Glamorous Glennis (or some variation thereof), after his wife. Yeager in the Bell X-1 cockpit. On the day of the flight, Yeager was in such pain that he could not seal the airplane's hatch by himself. Ridley rigged up a device, using the end of a broom handle as an extra lever, to allow Yeager to seal the hatch of the X-1.
[ Citation Provided ]
Chuck Yeager was actually nursing an injury on that day. And that he hid the fact that he was medically unfit to test that plane from his commanding officers. Because that flight was successful, everyone forgave Chuck. But he could have crashed the plane and set the program back by an year. In my eyes he is just a glory seeker, who put his personal ambition ahead of the interests of his mission.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I can do one better: The tip of a bullwhip broke the sound barrier centuries before rifle bullets. As far as I know no one ever rode a bullwhip past the sound barrier either.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I'd say its downfall was the sonic boom, period.
Work out a technical solution to get rid of the boom, and you can fly over populated areas.
One hundred people getting to their destination a couple of hours earlier isn't a good reason to roll thunder across tens of millions of people's heads. IMO, it's not a good reason to disturb a couple of thousand whales and dolphins, either, but they've got bigger problems than supersonic planes.
And rifle bullets broke the sound barrier centuries before that.
You mean those lead musket balls and iron gun shots propelled with black powder?
No. I mean rifles. The normal infantry weapon was a musket until the 19th century, but rifles were widely used by sharpshooters in the Seven Years War (known as the French and Indian War in North America), and rifles were around in smaller numbers since the 1500's.
Supersonic projectiles are nothing new.
If you think that's something, consider the B52s that are still flying.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
And a hundred or so other Air Cadet pilots, at our graduation ceremony. To celebrate to 50th anniversary of the RCAF, special guests were brought in to pin the wings on the graduating pilots at ceremonies around Canada. Ontario got the Prince of Wales, the Maritimes got Chuck Yeager. Usually Ontario gets the special treatment in Canada, but as newly minted pilots, having the first (official) man to break the sound barrier and decorated WWII fighter pilot decorate us, I think we all agreed that we won out that day!
...And they like to say the mother of the last C-130 pilot hasn't been born yet...
If you think that's something, consider the B52s that are still flying.
1LT Bob Welch, his father, LTC Don Welch (ret), and his grandfather, COL Don Sprague (ret), all served in the 23rd Bomb Squadron flying B-52s, and COL Sprague commanded the unit back in the 1970s. I wasn't able to dig up evidence that 1LT Welch actually flew the same plane his grandfather flew, but as his grandfather flew all the variants of the B-52 up through the H model, I expect that the Air Force would have arranged it just for publicity value.
economic- very expensive to operate and maintain resulting in high CASM
design flaw (or perhaps shortcomings)- the tire failure on AF4590 resulted in fuel tank rupture. One of four tire failures: "The NTSB described those incidents as "potentially catastrophic", because they were caused by blown tyres during take-off. The NTSB also expressed concern about the lack of adequate remedies, on the part of the French, as well as improper crew responses to those incidents." And "To save on weight, Concorde was designed to take off without the assistance of flaps or slats. That required a significantly higher air and tyre speed, during the take-off roll, which imposed a much greater centripetal force load on the tyres. That higher speed increased the risk of tyre explosion during take-off.
In any case, the Concorde was more about prestige than profit, at least for the operators.
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
I suspect you're right. Yeager doesn't suffer fools gladly. As I get older I'm more like that myself.
Yes, I have pictures of Chuck Norris with a bone photoshopped through his nose.
I also have pictures of Chuck Yeager photoshopped with a pussy on his forehead. There is also a though balloon with the words "The Right Stuff" pointing to the pussy.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Having just returned from Europe to Australia, I can assure you that if I could afford it, I'd take the shortest possible flight time every time.
Well, yes, that is pretty self evident. Flying is an horrendous pain in the arse so the shorter time you have to spend on a plane the better.
If I had to fly from Europe to Austalia, I would try to break it up into a few shorter flights with some sightseeing where I stopped over. I find transatlantic (UK to North America) bad enough, I would certainly not want to fly non stop to Oz.
If I could afford both the time and the money, I would go by luxury cruise liner.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Most pilots from that era (and pretty much every era) were dicks.
When you have a job where your survival depends on the competence of other people, normal social courtesies like tact, circumspection and compromise can get you killed.
If my survival depended on a team of other people, I think I'd try really, really hard not to be a dick towards them. I might express my dickishness on random strangers, small children, or whatever, but I certainly wouldn't want to piss off my team.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yeager isn't a very pleasant person.
He's a fighter ace and a test pilot. A trained killer, and an officer. Pleasant? If he were really in a bad mood, he'd strangle you with one quick grab and walk off. None of these guys are "pleasant". Just being able to adhere to reasonable social conventions in normal social settings is an accomplishment. The less fortunate ones are wandering the streets in a daze or locked up, and of course the least fortunate ones are dead. I wager he knows a lot of the less fortunate ones, and a lot of dead ones. Pleasant? For fucks sake... I have nothing to compare with what the military folk go through, and even I'm disgusted with you.
What a load of bollocks. Members of the armed forces are generally speaking more polite and well mannered than civilians. If you can't be pleasant when required, you're not going to make much of an officer.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Hmm.. well if he was actually flying the plane I guess it might, dunno where they draw the line on that in a dual-control aircraft. As a passenger, I believe centenary flights on concord were not uncommon...
I can assure you that if I could afford it, I'd take the shortest possible flight time every time
Sure, but why? Probably because you don't like being squished in an economy seat with bad company and bad food for 12 hours. What if you were in a comfortable recliner with tons of legroom, a work surface and multiple settings that turns the seat into a bed, with excellent service from in-flight staff, fine food & drink, an entertainment system with thousands of options and inflight internet. Flight wouldn't be so bad now, would it? This is what the airlines have discovered - If people are comfortable they don't really care if the flight is three or four hours longer - And an international first-class ticket is still cheaper than the Concorde was.