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Since men took to the air, aircraft design has been propelled by a desire to fly faster. During the Second World War, speed would separate victor from victim in the battles of the skies. The development of the jet engine allowed planes to fly increasingly fast and aircraft companies became driven by one goal – breaking the sound barrier.
It was understood that an aircraft in flight sends pressure waves ahead of it which break up the atmosphere, allowing the aircraft to fly forward. However, when a plane approaches the speed of sound, a physical barrier is created as the plane catches up with its own pressure waves and compresses the air in front of it.
In 1943, British intelligence reports convinced the authorities that the Germans were working on overcoming this problem and breaking through the sound barrier. The British responded quickly and asked Miles Aircraft of Reading to build a plane capable of reaching supersonic speeds. The Miles M52 was designed to reach 1000mph at 36,000 feet in 90 seconds. The plane was revolutionary: a bullet-shaped fuselage with thin wings aligned to combat the devastating effects of the supersonic (greater than the speed of sound) compressibility phenomenon. However, in February 1946, the project was cancelled 'in view of the unknown hazards' and potential danger to human life.
Luckily, Britain had another chance to overcome the problem. With 25 years of experience, De Havilland had excelled both in the civil and military aviation markets. After the Second World War, Sir Geoffrey De Havilland turned his attention to the problems of supersonic sound. Using his Goblin engine and Vampire jet body, he played around with different wing shapes.
During the war, the Germans had developed the ME 262 that had modestly swept wings. Observing that this plane did not seem to suffer the compressibility effect so greatly, De Havilland tried different wing angles in order to produce an aircraft that would perform both at subsonic (less than the speed of sound) and supersonic speeds. In September 1946, a prototype DH 108 Swallow was given a test flight. Unfortunately, the plane broke up over the Thames Estuary, killing the pilot, Geoffrey de Havilland, son of De Havilland's founder.
Meanwhile, the Americans had also been working on the problem. When the British halted the Miles Aircraft development of the M52, it had ordered that all design data should be sent to the Bell aircraft company in the USA. The Americans had tested the effects of transonic (speeds close to sound) flight in a wind tunnel. They found that 50-calibre bullets flying at supersonic speeds were stable. This gave them the idea for the design of the Bell X-1. The result looked like a 31-foot rocket-powered bullet with 28-foot wings attached.
There was only one problem: who would pilot it? There was no rear view, little chance of escape and was actually little more than a manned missile. Slick Goodlin test piloted the aircraft at low speed, but no-one from Bell would take it to supersonic speeds. In the end, it was passed on to the military where test pilot Chuck Yeager took control.
It was not an easy ride. On one early test flight, the shock waves paralysed the plane's tail, making it little more than an unguided missile. On 14 October 1947, Chuck prepared for another attempt. The X-1 was taken up in the B-29 mother ship. As he fell away, he ignited the four rocket chambers and went for it. As the X-1 reached the speed of sound the plane began to shake. Chuck continued to accelerate and passed the speed of sound (flying at Mach 1.06) for about 20 seconds before decelerating. The epic flight was kept secret for a few months before it was leaked to the world. America had won the race to break the sound barrier and a new race to reach Mach 2 was underway.
Cutty Sark and the Great Clippers
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