"The Boom"

Today is October 14^th, 1947 and I am reporting live from the California desert. I am in a van with the National Advisory Committee Aeronautics engineers as we await what may be a historic moment in time. Chuck Yeager, at age 24, is about to attempt breaking the sound barrier at 1.00 mach speed. I understand he broke his ribs last night when he fell from his horse and he will still attempt this flight. He is amazing. Mach is a measurement to determine the speed of aircraft. Mach 1, which is the speed of sound, can be compared to 761 miles per hour.

He is just now climbing into his experimental X-1 from a ladder that is hanging below the B-29 bomber. The wind chill is minus 50 degrees and they are flying at a speed of over 240 miles per hour. The X-1 is a small single-pilot aircraft. It looks like a bullet with short wings and tail. It has four rocket-type engines that use liquid oxygen for acceleration. The X-1 attaches to its mother ship so it can be transported from the airport to the predetermined altitude of 20,000 feet above sea level. The reason for the mother ship is the X-1 doesn’t have enough room for the amount of fuel necessary to take off and fly to that predetermined altitude and still be able to perform the test flight. The B-29 is a heavy lift bomber used during World War II. It is powered by four turbo-prop engines and has a large bomb bay to attach the X-1.

I hear now that he is in the jet and detaching from the B-29. He has quickly reached the speed of .87 mach. Nobody has ever attempted this and if Yeager accomplishes this, it will be the most significant event in the history of aviation since the Wright Brothers' flight. This is a very exciting moment for me.

He’s reaching mach speeds of .97 .98 .99 at an altitude of 42,000 feet -- all of a sudden there is a boom that could be heard for a great distance. The sound barrier, or the speed of sound, is a shockwave that is caused when an object excels through the sound barrier. This penetration caused a loud boom. Chucks colonel is shouting, “He’s done it; he’s done it!” and we were all cheering. Later that night we went to Poncho’s Fly-In to celebrate.

Chuck Yeager was born on February 13, 1923 in Hamlin, West Virginia. He has an older brother, Roy, and a younger brother, Hal Jr. He also has two younger sisters, Pansy Lee and Doris Ann. When his sister Doris Ann was a toddler, Roy, Chuck’s older brother, was messing around with a shotgun and it discharged and killed Doris Ann. From that day Chuck’s mother has never talked about the incident.

When Chuck was around the age of 20 he liked looking at engines and fixing them up. Chuck was so smart that he could take an engine apart and then rebuild it with no help. One day Chuck and his dad were at the neighbor’s house looking at the neighbor’s car and Chuck’s dad said he could mess around with the car. Chuck thought he had the skill to drive it. As he was driving, he kicked the car out of gear and it took off straight toward a hill at full speed. The car had no brakes. When he got to the other side of the hill, he slammed into a bunch of empty asphalt drums.

A couple of days later, after Chuck graduated from high school, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Chuck joined the Air Force branch of the military. He trained hard and surprisingly he loved it. He liked it so much; he knew more about planes than anyone else. During dog fight training, which means practicing flying techniques for real war, he usually won every time.