Chuck Yeager Re-Enacts the Historic Flight That Broke the Sound Barrier 122
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.'"
Re:Sure He Did (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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If you think that's something, consider the B52s that are still flying.
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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.
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...And they like to say the mother of the last C-130 pilot hasn't been born yet...
Hey Ridley, (Score:3, Funny)
...got a stick of Beemans?
Re-enacts? (Score:4, Informative)
Really?
No, sorry, it is not a re-enactment. He just went for a supersonic flight as a passenger.
Re:Re-enacts? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to see you re-enact anything besides shitting your pants when you're 89. Show the man a little respect, jackass.
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....."
Chuck wrote "Kick Me" on the back instead. What a jerk"............
PHWAHAHAHA!
Now I like him even more!
Re:Re-enacts? (Score:4, Funny)
I know, right? It's like those Civil War 're-enactors'; those pansies don't even use real bullets!
Re:Re-enacts? (Score:5, Funny)
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You could argue that he was a passenger on his first attempt as well. After all, for the supersonic part, he really couldn't do much than sit on his hands.
It's actually a facinating look at human history - between rockets and missiles and the early space missions. How much should the human be involved (or even should they?). During the early days it was a serious question of just how much should the human be involved an
Re:Re-enacts? (Score:4, 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.
Re:Re-enacts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uninformed troll. He was not a passenger. He flew second seat, which is customary when you are in a two-seater that isn't your plane.
Still has full flight controls and he was flying the aircraft. Yeager has flown the F15 for many years. He is more than qualified in the type. He is one hte most naturally gifted pilots ever to exist. The aircraft hasnt been made that he cant fly (this includes the Space Shuttle and the Mercury capsule, both of which he qualified for on the simulators). The only reason the plane commander was even there is because of Yeagar's advanced years and recent health problems, even though he had been flying F15s solo even up until a couple years ago.
One of the perks of being a retired General who still maintains his flight quals, and also partly cause hey, its Yeager, a man who in his 70s could still outfly men 40 years younger than he.
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Yeah, but Yeager couldn't have so easily used this modern F15 plane with modern, easy controls to exceed the sound barrier if it hadn't been for many brave pioneers who went before him and developed and bravely tested supersonic trav...
Wait. Nevermind.
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+1
Re:Is this... (Score:4, Informative)
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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.
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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 [tinyurl.com]
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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.
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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 wo
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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.
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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 "T
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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.
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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.
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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 [wikipedia.org] (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.
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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.
Scared (Score:5, Insightful)
'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.
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>I want to start a business. Where do I find these people who do it for me?
Just give your startup capital to me, I'll take total control, it won't be scary at all.
65 years minus 1 day (Score:5, Insightful)
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)!
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At 833MPH or 1.24 Mach, the parachuter is actually much faster
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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)!
That depends on your definition of the term. On 25 January 1966, Bill Weaver was flying SR-71A 61-7952 / 2003 at a speed of Mach 3.2 when he experienced a severe case of engine unstart. Before he could tell his RSO, Jim Zwayer, not to eject until he regained control of the aircraft, the SR-71 disintegrated around him, leaving him in free fall at a speed in excess of Mach 3. His drogue chute deployed, stabilizing his fall, and his main chute deployed automatically. Weaver spotted his RSO's chute during his p
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Those are 2 of the coolest air accident stories I have ever heard.... and I now have a mental picture of the SR-71 Blackbird disintegrating like in a cartoon, leaving the guy upright in his ejector seat looking round confused like Wile E Coyote after running off the edge of a cliff just before gravity kicks in.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I suspect you're right. Yeager doesn't suffer fools gladly. As I get older I'm more like that myself.
Probbably not the first (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [aerospaceweb.org].
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Marketing 101 (Score:2)
Yeager did it in level flight - a huge difference
Yeager's plane was called "X-1" and Welch's "F-86"--huge difference.
FTFY
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No, Yeager was climbing. A huge-er-er difference.
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The Wiki makes it sound VERY debatable. There's been an issue with air speed indicators showing false readings as you approach the sound barrier. I've heard stories of prop plane pilots thinking they broke the sound barrier in that era (which is supposed to be impossible).
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You are right, you cannot trust airspeed indicators which were not designed for trans or supersonic flight. However, there is no debate that the F-86 could go supersonic (in a dive) so this story is plausible. There a several accounts in a quick Google search of F-86 pilots claiming supersonic flight. One account states that ,"One entire training flight in the F-86L was devoted to supersonic flight." (http://sabre-pilots.org/classics/v83mach.htm). So the aircraft was easily capable, just depends on whet
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I thought the big secret of going supersonic learned during the X-1 program (thanks to Jack Ridley's improvisation) was having a flying tail.
F-86 didn't get a flying tail until the E model. Welch was supposed to have broken the sound barrier in a steep dive with hinged elevators? Wouldn't the elevator lose all effectiveness due to the shockwaves slamming against the elevator hinge? Which, since he was in a steep dive, meant he couldn't pull out and thus crash into the ground or the plane disintegrating from
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Shockwaves form differently based on airfoil (and fuselage) shape. A flying tail certainly HELPS, but you don't necessarily lose all function.
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Well, the entire plane may not have broken the sound barrier, but in modern days, the sound barrier does pose lots of technical challenges for parts of the plane. Propellers are often speed limited to prevent the tips from going supersonic (and helicopters have it worse - thanks
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The sound barrier was actually broken during WWII by German pilot Hans Guido Mutke in an ME-262. The XS-1 was actually based on Germany technology derived from that aircraft, and research done by the British.
WWII generated a lot of advanced tech that was kept secret and not recognized until years, often decades later. The first computer, Colossus, is another prominent example.
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Pardon my raised eyebrows; really? .50 cal bullet shaped airframe that was developed starting in 1944 before the allies had their hands on a Me-262 was ACTUALLY BASED on the Me-262? I'm not stating that the XS-1 didn't incorporate lessons learned, but if you look at the two airframes objectively you'd be hard pressed to find any similarities.
That straight-winged,
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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.
If it ain't documented, it didn't happen. Sorry but those are the breaks. Sometimes it ain't nice (Watson and Crick vs Franklin). Sometimes it who gets to the printer first (Newton vs Leibniz).
Other times it comes to splitting hairs... Kittinger's 1960 jump was not a freefall (he used a drogue) and Gagarin did not make the first human spaceflight (he didn't land in the spacecraft but parachuted from it). Cmon, stop arguing, Joe made the first skydive above 100K and Yuri was the first spaceman.
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You are totally correct on your statements. I relayed the story in my first post because I had read it a long time ago in an Air and Space Smithsonian magazine and it seemed plausible ("probably", as I posted, is too strong). To an aviation buff, it is interesting whether it is likely that XF-86 really did exceed Mach 1 that day, even if it did, it was not going to go any faster as the X-1 did. The record, of course, goes to Yeager and the X-1. Whichever aircraft did exceed Mach 1 first is immaterial to
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However, Yeager is the first _confirmed_ person to go over Mach 1--mostly because during the XS-1's test flight, there was a large number of tracking cameras and other recording instruments that proved he DID exceed the speed of sound. Welch may have exceeded Mach 1, but the XP-86 prototype's dive was not tracked by cameras and other recording instruments, so it was NOT an official record.
Disputed claims (Score:2)
Re:Disputed claims (Score:5, Interesting)
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The difference is that the WWII planes could only do it in a near-suicidal dive. The X-1 could do it intentionally, under normal powered flight.
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The difference is that the WWII planes could only do it in a near-suicidal dive. The X-1 could do it intentionally, under normal powered flight.
2 things you may not know:
- 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.
- The Me163 was a rocket fighter. Some claim it broke the sound barrier in 1944. The Bell X-1 is almost a copy of its design.
No official world records, I'm afraid. Well, there was this war going on, that made quite difficult for international records bodies to arrange for a convenient validation spot...
Of course, these planes were on the wrong
Re:Disputed claims (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.
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- The Me163 was a rocket fighter. ... The Bell X-1 is almost a copy of its design.
You're kidding, right?
Re:Disputed claims (Score:4, 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.
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Not only that, but as the shockwave develops, it screws with the pressures sensed by the instruments causing erroneous readings, depending on where the Pitot tube and static inlets are installed.
Commemorative flight, not re-enactment (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually, I hate the expression "sound barrier". It is not, and never has been, a barrier; it's a hurdle.
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It is not, and never has been, a barrier; it's a hurdle.
I... er... uh... what?
And what is a hurdle if not a low barrier?
It was a barrier, for several reasons. One is that on entering the transonic regime, drag increases massively. The other is that aircraft tended to go out of control and crash unpleasantly, or get low enough that they were no longer supersonic, with a return of control.
The problems were mostly solved by a better understangind of aerodynamics. For instance, increasing the critical mach numb
Re:Commemorative flight, not re-enactment (Score:5, 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.
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A barrier is something you can't get past. A hurdle is something you can't get past unless you go about it properly.
The theory back then was any faster and any plane would break apart.
Pre-1947 cite, please? Calling something unsolved is not calling it unsolvable. The Grand Slam bomb may or may not have gone supersonic, but it definitely got into the transonic range where shocks occur on parts of the object, and it remained stable. And the X-1 was deliberately shaped like the .50 BMG bullet, a shape known to have an acceptable amount of supersonic drag (though it did have th
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Ok, well I wish you take a steep dive with a WII propeller fighter and you will see why it is called a barrier ...
-Alejandro
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Until it was broken, it FELT like a barrier. It is literally broken through when flying as well.
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Yaeger was the first to do it deliberately, measurably, in level flight,
Actually X-1 was designed to break the sound barrier while going up. The designers knew from previous attempts by others that as you get very close to Mach 1, the elevator stops working. All the previous attempts were done while in a dive, and they all lost the use of their elevators, and they all died as their planes disintegrated because they couldn't pull out.
Bell's solution was that they would attempt Mach 1 while going UP, not diving. This would ensure that even if they lost the elevator, since the pla
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There never been any proof that any of those planes actually achieved Mach 1+. None. The single biggest source of all speculation is the fact the USAF kept Yeager's flight secret for over a year, and only said something after the Brits finally did it successfully.
Big Brass Ones ... (Score:2)
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.
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They're tough in Myra, WV.
Bell X-1? Bah..... (Score:2)
This would have been a lot better.. (Score:2)
Wasn't Chuck Yeager injured or sick? (Score:2)
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 [wikipedia.org] ]
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.
Re:Wasn't Chuck Yeager injured or sick? (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words he was a typical test pilot of the time.
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Chuck Yeager gave me my wings (Score:1)
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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.
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