John Ridgefield
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The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, these effects were seen as constituting a barrier, making faster speeds very difficult or ...
Sep 30, 2017 · The Bell X-1 broke the sound barrier with Col. Chuck Yeager at the controls on Oct. 14, 1947. (Image credit: NASA) Four rocket engines propelled the X-1, and it was built to absorb 18 times...
Mar 11, 2002 · Any discussion of what happens when an object breaks the sound barrier must begin with the physical description of sound as a wave with a finite propagation speed.
Breaking the sound barrier meant breaking a psychological barrier as well as an engineering one. Once the possibility was proven, research was able to proceed, moving up to higher speeds and higher altitudes.
Feb 16, 2017 · The next barrier for air travel looks hyper: hypersonics, a regime that begins at Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, or 3,300 miles per hour (5,311 kph) at altitude. Langley’s work with hypersonics was spurred in part in the 1940s by the post-war discovery of a German Mach 5 wind tunnel.
Oct 13, 2021 · After 50 test flights — and some key modifications — that’s exactly what Air Force Pilot Chuck Yeager did on October 14, 1947. He took the X-1 right up to the sound barrier and flew straight ...
Breaking the Sound Barrier. We began this chapter by transporting ourselves back to October 14, 1947, and riding with Chuck Yeager as he flew the Bell X-1 through the sound barrier, becoming the first human to fly faster than sound.
