Word: sound
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Even flying much slower than sound, airplanes can run afoul of shock waves. The air crowding past them has to go faster to get around their curved surfaces. If, in its hurry, the air hits the speed of sound, shock waves form locally. Good design has steadily raised the speed at which an airplane can fly without trouble from local shock waves. But there is a limit: the speed of sound itself.* At this critical speed, an airplane's motion is sure to generate shock waves...
What violence these would do no one knew, but so many airplanes had met disaster far below sonic speed that the "sonic wall" had earned a fearful reputation. Designers and pilots spoke of it with awe. It was widely believed that when an airplane reached the speed of sound, it would disintegrate...
...Pilot Yeager knew all this when he prepared to fly the Air Force's odd little Bell speedster. He took over the X-1 from a civilian test pilot, Chalmers ("Slick") Goodlin, who had flown the ominous little ship at Mach .8 (eight-tenths of the speed of sound). Goodlin was offered a fat reward (a rumored $150,000) for flying it at full speed, but he did not like the terms. Another civilian pilot had a try at the X-1 and hastily bowed out. Then the Air Force took charge and gave the job to Chuck Yeager...
...Chuck climbed aboard the B29. He already knew what the X-1 would do below Mach 1 (the speed of sound). He had flown it many times, working it up gradually toward the critical speed. The rocket plane handled beautifully, both when flying under rocket power and when gliding down so quietly that Chuck could hear the clock ticking on the instrument panel. After each landing, Captain Jackie L. Ridley, Muroc flight test engineer, analyzed the records of the X-1's instruments. On the whole, they were encouraging. But no one was sure what would happen...
...climbed high at tremendous speed. ("It's like having hold of something by the tail and not daring let go.") At carefully timed intervals he fired the other rockets. Each gave the little orange airplane another mighty push. Chuck didn't hear much noise; he was leaving sound behind...