Word: speeding
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...room and its walled-off secrecy. The X-1 was never intended as an "operational airplane"; it is more like a flying wind tunnel. Its big advantage is that its rockets, which produce a thrust of 6,000 Ibs., are not weakened, like "air-breathing" engines, by high speed or high altitude. The X-1 can whip up to where the air is thin and still have power to pick up speed as long as the fuel lasts...
Supersonic Passes. Smashing speed and altitude records is not the real work of the X-1. It was designed to solve the problem of practical supersonic flying. Chuck Yeager has put it through maneuvers at all speeds within its range. He has dived it under power, rolled it, looped it. He has fired guns above the speed of sound ("getting somewhere," is all he says about that...
Inside the X-1 are intricate recording instruments that total more than 500 Ibs. This week, as Chuck brought the plane down once again, the records were greedily grabbed, as usual, by Muroc's scientists and airplane designers. Already the records have had a profound effect on high-speed modern aircraft. When production aircraft fly faster than sound, as scientists are sure they will one day, their pilots will thank the X-1, the first airplane to pass through the transonic zone and bring back information...
...should be able to carry nearly twice as much lox and alcohol. This single improvement (there may be others) should push it into a much higher speed range. Numerous guessers around California airfields speculate that it ought to climb well above 100,000 ft. At this altitude the air is so thin that tremendous speed should be possible...
Chuck's pals are sure that he can fly the near-meteoric new airplane as it should be flown. He will bring it back safely, they are certain, from the top of the stratosphere, and land it at an unholy speed on the friendly lake. Then he will drive home to Glennis and tell her that the flight was "like all the rest of them." After a while, Chuck Yeager's friends hope, the Old Man will transfer him to some other Air Force job where promotion steps faster than the death that rides in the cockpit with...