On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, piloting an aircraft faster than the speed of sound in the Bell X-1 above the high desert near California’s Edwards Air Force Base. A stunning replica of the Bell X-1 Yeager used to break the sound barrier hangs proudly in the entrance Rotunda at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

The Museum’s Bell X-1 reproduction was a two-year restoration project that involved over a dozen volunteers from both the Museum’s main site in Balboa Park and its Gillespie Field Annex in El Cajon. The Bell X-1 is painted exactly like the original flown by Yeager when he broke the sound barrier. The Museum’s Bell X-1 display in the entrance Rotunda also includes an exact reproduction of the Bell X-1’s instrument panel in a case below the plane.

The Bell X-1, (originally the XS-1) was a joint NACA-U.S. Army Air Forces, secret supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived in 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it was the first aircraft to intentionally exceed the speed of sound in controlled, level flight. The aircraft conceptually was a “bullet with wings,” shaped to resemble a .50 caliber machine gun bullet (a projectile known to be stable at supersonic speeds). The aircraft was powered by a liquid-propellant rocket system featuring a four-chamber motor burning liquid oxygen and ethyl alcohol diluted with water, delivered from separate tanks pressurized with nitrogen. The rocket thrust was activated by the pilot incrementally firing one or more chambers at a time.

Following a series of administrative issues with Bell, the Army Air Force took over the flight test program, naming then Capt. Chuck Yeager as pilot. Launched from the bomb-bay of a modified B-29 flown by then Maj. Robert Cardenas, it was on October 14, 1947, flight number 50, when the X-1 the first flew supersonic reaching, Mach 1.06 (807.2 mph). The huge supersonic boom over Muroc Lake announced the beginning of a new era of flight.

Yeager and Cardenas, who were both eventually promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, were inducted into the prestigious International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum; Yeager in 1966, and Cardenas in 2008.

Speaker Series Video
The Bell X-1 and Supersonic Flight - The Air & Space Museum’s Special Guest Speaker, Cam Martin, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the rocket-powered Bell X-1, Glamorous Glennis.  Best known for making the first supersonic flight in level flight 76 years ago on October 14, 1947, piloted by Capt. Chuck Yeager.  Cam’s presentation covers the origins of the Bell X-1 program and concludes with some popular and enduring myths associated with this iconic machine.