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The sound barrier is the speed at which sound travels, and anything that exceeds this speed creates a sonic boom. The sound barrier was first broken by Captain Charles Chuck Yeager on 14 October 1947, flying at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13.7 km) in a Bell X-1 rocket-propelled experimental aircraft. Yeager's aircraft reached 1,127 kilometres (700 miles) per hour, or Mach 1.06, becoming the first plane to fly faster than the speed of sound.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Date | 14 October 1947 |
| Person | Chuck Yeager |
| Aircraft | Bell X-1 |
| Speed | 1,127 kilometres (700 miles) per hour (Mach 1.06) |
| Altitude | 42,000 feet |
| Location | Rogers Dry Lake, California |
| Other | The transition to supersonic flight was smooth and uneventful |
| The world’s first piloted supersonic flight lasted 14 minutes | |
| The Bell X-1 flew 78 times, reaching speeds as fast as Mach 1.45 and altitudes as high as 21,900 meters (71,900 feet) | |
| Claims by others | George Welch, Hans Guido Mutke, John Derry |
| Claims by others - Disputed | Welch's claim is not officially recognised due to lack of proper monitoring; Mutke's claim is widely disputed, including by pilots in his unit; Derry's claim is disputed by others in the field |
| Claims by others - Plausible | Welch's claim is supported by strong evidence from witnesses and instruments; Derry has been called "Britain's first supersonic pilot" |
| Claims by others - Recognised | N/A |
| Theoretic claims | Certain long-tailed dinosaurs such as Brontosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Diplodocus could have broken the sound barrier with their tails |
| Theoretic claims - Disputed | This claim is disputed by others in the field |
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What You'll Learn
Who was the first person to break the sound barrier?
On October 14, 1947, Captain Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Yeager flew a Bell XS-1, nicknamed "Glamorous Glennis", a tribute to his wife, over Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The X-1 reached a speed of 700 miles per hour and an altitude of 43,000-45,000 feet. As Yeager passed through the sound threshold, a sonic boom was heard across the Mojave Desert.
There are some anecdotal claims that Yeager was not the first person to break the sound barrier. It is said that American pilot George Welch may have broken the sound barrier two weeks before Yeager while diving an XP-86 Sabre. There are also claims that German pilots Lothar Sieber, Heini Dittmar, and Hans Guido Mutke broke the sound barrier before Yeager. However, these earlier flights did not use the precision instruments used to document Yeager's flight carefully. Yeager's flight was carefully planned and executed, and he successfully broke the sound barrier in a sustained supersonic flight.
For his historic achievement, Yeager was awarded the Mackay Trophy and the Collier Trophy in 1948, and the Harmon International Trophy in 1954. He was also inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973. Yeager went on to break several other speed and altitude records in the following years and had a distinguished career in the United States Air Force, commanding fighter squadrons and wings in Germany and Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1969 and became the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School in 1962, which trained and produced astronauts for NASA and the Air Force.
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What is a sonic boom?
The sound barrier was first broken by Chuck Yeager on 14 October 1947, flying at an altitude of 45,000 feet (13.7 km) in the X-1. There were several other claims made during World War II and the years that followed, but most of these were dismissed as instrumentation errors.
A sonic boom is a sound associated with shock waves created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. To put it simply, it is the sound of something travelling faster than sound. Sonic booms generate a large amount of sound energy, sounding like an explosion or thunder to the human ear. The pressure wave produced by lightning is also a sonic boom.
The speed of sound is about 750 miles per hour at sea level. Any object travelling faster than this speed will create a sonic boom. The crack of a supersonic bullet or the crack of a bullwhip are examples of small sonic booms. The boom is being generated continuously as long as the aircraft is supersonic, filling out a narrow path on the ground following the aircraft's flight path, known as the boom carpet. The width of the boom carpet depends on the altitude of the aircraft.
The power or volume of the shock wave depends on the quantity of air that is being accelerated, and thus the size and shape of the aircraft. A vehicle flying at a greater altitude will generate lower pressures on the ground because the shock wave reduces in intensity as it moves away from the vehicle. However, the drag at this altitude or below makes supersonic travel very inefficient.
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What is Mach speed?
The Mach number is a measure of the speed of an aircraft compared to the speed of sound in the air. Mach 1 is the speed of sound, and aircraft that exceed Mach 1 are said to be supersonic. The Mach number is named after Ernst Mach, an Austrian physicist who first devised the measurement.
Mach speed is a useful way to measure the speed of aircraft travelling close to or beyond the speed of sound. At supersonic speeds, a large pressure difference is created just in front of the aircraft, causing a shock wave known as a sonic boom. This sonic boom can be heard by people on the ground as a fast-moving aircraft travels overhead, but not by a person inside the aircraft. The higher the speed, the narrower the cone-shaped shock wave.
The speed of sound is not constant; it varies with the temperature and altitude of the air. For example, at an altitude of 11,000 meters (36,089 ft), the speed of sound is approximately 295.0 meters per second (967.8 ft/s; 659.9 mph; 1,062 km/h; 573.4 kn).
The Mach number is defined as the ratio of two speeds and is a dimensionless quantity. It can be used to determine the compressibility characteristics of fluid flow, with the fluid behaving in a similar manner at a given Mach number, regardless of other variables. The Mach number is also used to determine the approximation with which a flow can be treated as an incompressible flow.
Breaking the sound barrier, or achieving supersonic speed, has been a significant milestone in aviation history. The first crewed supersonic flight occurred on October 14, 1947, when Air Force Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager flew the Bell X-1 aircraft at an altitude of 45,000 feet (13.7 km).
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What is the speed of sound?
The speed of sound refers to the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it moves through an elastic medium. In simpler terms, it is the speed at which vibrations travel. This speed depends on the temperature and the medium through which the sound wave is propagating. For example, at 20 °C, the speed of sound in air is approximately 343 m/s, while at 0 °C, it decreases to around 331 m/s. The speed of sound in water is significantly higher at 1481 m/s, and in solids like iron and diamond, sound travels even faster, reaching speeds of 5120 m/s and 12,000 m/s respectively.
The concept of the speed of sound is closely related to the Mach number, which is the ratio of an object's speed to the speed of sound in the same medium. When an object exceeds the speed of sound, it is said to be travelling at supersonic speeds. Breaking the sound barrier refers to achieving speeds faster than sound, and this milestone has been a significant pursuit in the history of aviation.
During World War II and the years that followed, several claims were made of breaking the sound barrier, but many were attributed to instrumentation errors. The first confirmed supersonic flight occurred on October 14, 1947, when Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager piloted the Bell X-1 aircraft at supersonic speeds. Prior to this, George Welch made an unverified claim of breaking the sound barrier in a similar aircraft, the XP-86, but his flights lacked proper monitoring and are not officially recognized.
The pursuit of breaking the sound barrier extended beyond aviation. Some paleobiologists theorize that certain long-tailed dinosaurs, such as Brontosaurus and Diplodocus, may have been capable of flicking their tails at supersonic speeds millions of years ago. These findings are disputed, but they highlight the fascination and significance of surpassing the speed of sound, whether in the present or the ancient past.
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What are the effects of breaking the sound barrier?
The sound barrier refers to the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. Breaking the sound barrier produces a sonic boom, which can be heard on the ground as an explosion. This occurs when the speed of the object increases to sonic velocity, causing sound waves to pile up in front of it. If the object has sufficient acceleration, it can burst through this barrier of sound waves and move ahead of the radiated sound.
The sonic boom can be extremely loud, like a bomb going off, causing windows to shake. However, the experience inside the cockpit of a supersonic aircraft is quite different. With modern aircraft designed to go supersonic, there is barely any noticeable difference when breaking the sound barrier, except that it may get slightly smoother and quieter. Pilots may rely on their speed and the formation of a vapour cloud to know they have broken the sound barrier.
The term "sound barrier" came into use during World War II when pilots of high-speed fighter aircraft experienced the effects of compressibility, which deterred further acceleration, seemingly impeding flight at speeds close to the speed of sound. These adverse aerodynamic effects made it difficult for aircraft to exceed the speed of sound, leading to the concept of a "barrier".
The German V-2 ballistic missile became the first object to break the sound barrier in 1942, and by 1944, it routinely achieved Mach 4 during terminal descent. During WWII and immediately after, there were several claims that aircraft had broken the sound barrier in a dive, but most of these were dismissed as instrumentation errors due to the non-linear behaviour of airspeed indicators at high speeds.
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Frequently asked questions
Yes, the sound barrier was first broken by Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager on October 14, 1947, in the Bell X-1.
The Bell X-1 was a rocket-propelled experimental aircraft that was air-launched from a large B-29 bomber. Yeager fired the X-1 engine and accelerated past the speed of sound, reaching a speed of 1,127 kilometres (700 miles) per hour or Mach 1.06.
Yes, a few other individuals have claimed to have broken the sound barrier before Yeager, including Hans Guido Mutke, who claimed to have done so in a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet aircraft in 1945. Additionally, some paleobiologists suggest that certain long-tailed dinosaurs may have been able to flick their tails at supersonic speeds, breaking the sound barrier.
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