On This Day In History
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Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier on October 14, 1947.
For years, many aviators believed that man was not meant to fly faster than the speed of sound, theorizing that transonic drag rise would tear any aircraft apart. All that changed on October 14, 1947, when Yeager flew the X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude). The rocket plane, nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis” (after Yeager's wife), was designed with thin, unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a .50-caliber bullet.
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One of my favorite movies:
Link to videoJust listen to Tom Conti's score. It's brilliant, and makes this scene all it could be.
At 1:20...the music pauses as Yeager seals the hatch.
And a nod to Holst's "The Planets" that follows.
Read the book. The book is more about Yeager than the Mercury Seven, unlike the movie.
