Chuck Yeager Broke Sound Barrier 60 Years Ago - VOA Story

YouTube ^ | Oct 15, 2007 | My Earbot

[Daffynition]

The only place I know where you can still buy it.....Weston, VT.

http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/store/jump/productDetail/Food_&_Candy/Candy_&_Chocolate/Nostalgic_Treats/Old-Time_Gums_%28Box_of_Twenty_5-Stick_Packs%29/54938

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Daffynition, and a happy belated anniversary of the event goes out to General Yeager. I heartily recommend his autobiography, and not least for its “other voices” chapters, which were contributed by other people.

An “extra, extra” ping to the APoD members.

[Conservative4Ever]

Yep....great movie. Yeager is a hero to my grown son. Read about Yeager while in grade school and made Yeager his hero.

[left that other site]

One of my childhood heroes!

[Oatka]

My sister was part of Public Relations at Edwards back when he visited the place in later years. She handled all kinds of requests, including requests for his autographed picture. He was long gone when the requests came in, so she signed his name and sent them off.

Days later she realized she had spelled his last name “Yaeger”. Nobody ever complained.

[RedMDer]

Click

[Moonman62]

Unlike other inventors of their time and earlier, they didn't focus on power plants or just the macro-scale features of the structure; they did their homework on airfoil design and control surfaces. It was ground-breaking work, and it paid off.

They even used a wind tunnel. The think the key word for Wrights is they had the first controlled flight.

[NonValueAdded]

actually, click the image in my post above and you can order it online.

[calex59]

In 1903 there were only two pilots in the entire world. And only two airplane designers. All named Wright.

Actually there were several other pilots(or would be pilots)but only the wright bros got off the ground:). Yep, I would say there's was a far greater achievement than Chuck's. Although Chuck was a great pilot, he would never have broken the sound barrier had it not been for Orville an Wilbur. A pilot I think came closest to their achievement was Charles Lindbergh, he helped build his plane and played a large part in the design of it, not to mention flying across the Atlantic with only a compass and dead reckoning to guide him. Still, without the pioneer work of the Wright Bros, he would never have known how to design a plane let alone fly one.

[elcid1970]

Did the Wright brothers utilize any of the aerodynamic discoveries of Otto Lilienthal, the German glider designer and pilot?

[tanknetter]

He broke the sound barrier with a broken arm. He had to use a cut down broomstick handle to lock the hatch.

It wasn't his arm. He'd cracked his ribs in a horse riding accident, and when sitting in the X-1's cockpit wasn't able to reach across to activate the locking mechanism.

[.30Carbine]

I really appreciate your ping to this “blast” from the past!

(Someone said that already, surely.)

[Daffynition]

We associate the Swiss with high-quality goods and if you haven’t had the chance, view the video of Rossy’S flight over the GC....exquisitely done.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2792867/posts

[Daffynition]

Great story! Thanks Oatka.

If we ever see a Chuck Yeager autograph appear on the pawn-show, and they discover it is spelled wrong...we'll know why! LOL

[tanknetter]

Chuck Yeager piloted the first supersonic flight. A lot of engineers developed the aircraft that was capable of making the first supersonic flight. It was a huge team effort of which Yeager was the visible icon. But it could have been anyone else, including the Bell test pilot who went on strike for more money and didn't get to make the first flight.

There's quite a bit of mythology built up around the X-1 program, and the portrayal in "The Right Stuff" of Yeager just being an available pilot when Slick Goodlin took his walk definitely qualifies as such.

Yeager, for all his faults (and he had/has many) was much much more than the "visible icon" of the program and the first guy who happened to make it through the sound barrier. He was an integral part of the engineering and test team, and his experience and skills contributed enormously across the whole range of the program's success. Not the least of which included the discovery that the use of the horizontal stabilizer's trim capability (which allowed the entire stab to be moved up and down about 5 degrees in either direction) would compensate for the problematic shockwave condition responsible for locking the controls. This not only allowed the flight through the sound barrier, it also led to the development of the "flying tail" configuration which has provided significant (an understatement) benefits ever since.

[Daffynition]

“[Lilienthal] was without question the greatest of the precursors, and the world owes to him a great debt." Wilbur Wright September 1912

Otto Lilienthal,1848–1896 The most influential glider pioneer was Otto Lilienthal, a German engineer who began his aeronautical research in 1871 by studying bird flight. After nearly two decades of imaginative experimentation and research, he produced the best and most complete body of aerodynamic data up to that time. He published his results in Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation) in 1889.

Lilienthal gliders
Following his program of data collection, Lilienthal constructed and tested a series of elegant, full-size gliders. Between 1891 and 1896 he made nearly 2,000 brief flights in 16 different glider designs based on his aerodynamic research.

An abrupt and tragic end
On August 9, 1896, while flying one of his monoplane gliders, Lilienthal stalled and crashed. He died from his injuries the following day. The Wright brothers later cited his death as the point when their serious interest in flight research began.

[Daffynition]

You knew the answer to your question, already, didn't you?

The drawbacks of Lilienthal's method of control Otto Lilienthal controlled his glider by shifting his body weight from side to side, which altered the craft’s center of gravity and caused it to turn. The Wrights recognized that this technique severely limited the size of the aircraft, because the pilot and craft had to be similar in weight for body shifting to be effective. They reasoned that if they could control balance aerodynamically—using the forces air exerts on a wing—they could build an aircraft of any size and weight.

[rabidralph]

It’s been on cable the past couple of weeks and I’ve seen it three times now. What a great, quiet movie.

[doorgunner69]

Easy for me, day after I was born!

[Yo-Yo]

You are correct, sir. Ribs it was. I don’t know why my fingers types “arm.”