HOW'S THIS! General Chuck Yeager!

Indeed without the Miles M52 the USA would not have got there first!!!.

I was led to believe that after detaching from the carrier ship the X1 was put into a climb to get to the desired conditions and then once leveled out supersonic flight was achieved.

John.

up I think!

Let me just dig out Yeager 😮 once again(old fart’s still kicking like a mule 😀 ).

But I am preety sure it was blasting toward the star’s :rolleyes: , just as said above! 😉

Ciao for now! :p

I don’t believe the John Derry DH110 accident stopped mach 1 dives at airshows because this continued in my memory into the mid sixties. Also the DH110 at Farnborough was at a much lower speed when the rolling pull manouvre caused the fracture in the starboard wing which triggered the rapid break up of the aircraft. It did not take skill to dive an aircraft like the hunter or DH110 through mach 1. Just lower the nose at full power at a height which guaranteed exceeding mach 1 before increasing air temp put it out of reach. The hunter handled well at supersonic speed if trimmed correctly. The only significant transonic effect was to tighten up in turns or pull-outs risking a G overshoot and overstress. This was cured on later aircraft with the saw tooth leading edge.

Back to the thread.

I thought that the X1 exceeded Mach 1, not in level flight, but in a climb. This would make sense because with decreasing temperature (increasing altitude), the speed of sound also decreases. Big rocket bolted to backside – Voila.

Miles M52 should have been allowed to do it with a jet engine of course.

Interesting that at the time the emphasis was on getting through the ‘sound barrier’ any which way. An aircraft was considered ‘supersonic’ if it could exceed Mach 1, no matter what the circumstances – so DH110, Hunter, Swift, all considered ‘supersonic’ at the time. The SBAC airshow used to require that all high performance aircraft begin their displays with a supersonic dive designed to plant the sonic booms on the crowd line. No doubt very impressive if done properly but the DH110 crash put an end to that. In the late 40s and early 50s it would have no doubt taken quite a bit of skill to get an aircraft through Mach 1, while still in control, even in a dive. Control in the transonic region was not so well understood and buffeting, drastic trim change and even control reversal was found by pilots trying to get through Mach 1 in this era.

Yeager’s first supersonic flight was a shallow dive I believe, but shortly after that the XS1 exceeded Mach 1 in level flight making it ‘genuinely’ supersonic.

One can only magine that it is easier to ride a bike downhill than it is to ride it on a flat road, the same can be applied to flight.

One must also remember that at the time that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier the aircraft in service where driven by very inneficient jet engines that could get the airframe up to the transonic region but not through the sound barrier, once at the transonic stage it was possible to put the aircraft into a shallow dive and add more airspeed using gravitiy therefore just managing to push through the sound barrier.

Mr Yeager was piloting a rocket powered airframe that presented much less drag and was able to acheive supersonic LEVEL flight, it was not long after that that people began to add things up, all moving tail plane, high degree of sweep back on the main wings, more powerfull engines and supersonic flight was then commonplace.

regards,

John.

Hi all, I have a question, why was there a difference placed on pilots breaking the sound barrier in a dive or level flight? Was it a case of any nutty pilot could break it in a dive? Ive read the discussion with interest but a little confused over the difference between to the two. Bex

Did some one say Yeager!

:dev2:

I see what you mean, Phil, but I guess we’ll never know now whether George was trying to prove a point (on his own or the company’s behalf) or not. God rest his soul, anyway.

No worrie’s Papa mate!

The guy pushed that F-100 program through, Yeager flew it and said to wheatie’s, Hey ‘ I said ‘you can’t fly in formation with this thing. It has the damned sorriest flight control system I ‘ve ever seen.’ Wheaties just shook his head. He was an old fighter jock who had shot down Japenese Zeros during the Pearl Harbor attack(is this verifide). ‘Goddamn it Chuck you’re just being hypercritical,’ he insisted. ‘No. I’m not,’ I said. ‘That airplane just isn’t stable.’ Pete Everest told him the same thing.

Welsh said, I’ll prove to you that you’re all nit-picking. I’m going to bring in some fighter pilots from the Tactical Air command. guys who just know how to fight. and let them fly it.’ And he did. Flying chase with those TAC pilots was wild. They had a ball booming across the sky. ‘God, this thing really goes,’ they said, taking it out to 1.33 Mach. When they came in, Welsh asked, what do you guys think about the airplane’s stability?’ Those jocks looked blank. ‘Huh?’

No, they didn’t try to fly formation, they just flew balls-out. ‘Great airplane,’ they said ‘Really hot.’

We had a real conflict developing with Nort American, and Dutch Kindelburg, their board chairman, went to the Pentagon to insist that there was nothing wrong with his Super Sabre and that a few of the Edwards test pilots were nit-picking. He carried with him the statements from the young fighter jocks saying how great the airplane handled. Usually the military test pilots have the final word about wherther or not a prototype should go into production.

In this case the Air Force, knowing that the T A C was panting to get their hands on that hot new fighter, decided that the deficiencies in the F-100 were in the extreme corner of the flight envelope and would be unlikely to cause pilots problems.

Dutch won the battle, but, man, did he lose the war.

About two hundred F-100s had been delivered to the Air Force in September 1954, when Wheaties Welsh was killed diving an F-100 at 1.4 Mach. The airplane disintegrated, but flight recorders revealedit was directionally unstable. The Air Force grounded all the F-100s in its inventory and sent back them to North American.

The modifications necessary included a larger tail and a new flight control system, and they almost bankrupted the company.

But it took the death of their chief tset pilot to make thatairplane safe to fly.

Was Welsh just beig a salesman when he accused us of nit-picking? If so, he was a fool to attempt a structural integrity demonstation dive.

How that’s Papa mate, do you get what I mean now!

And it was Scotty Crossfield who put a Super Sabre through the hangar wall.

Ciao, I am stuffed, must crash again, this Cr@p’s way to addictive once it take’s you over! ” Gut Nacht ” all.

Phil, I’m not sure what you are insinuating about George Welch (who I believe was the first to exceed Mach 1, even if it was in a dive and not in level flight), but here is a quote about his demise from “Test Pilots” by Richard P. Hallion:
“. . . his experimental F-100A Super Sabre abruptly sideslipped during a rolling pullout (the most strenuous of maneuvers) from a Mach 1.5 dive, yawing about 15 degrees and then disintegrating. . . . a program of research (ensued) that finally led to a complete redesign of its vertical tail surfaces, as well as a thorough understanding of the inertial coupling phenomenon.”
Thus George did not die in vain, and as far as I can see, money had nothing to do with it.
Forgive me if I misunderstood you.

I have read his book and i think the man is a living legend so why cant people just leave him like that instead of giving it the old ‘ someone broke the sound barrier before’ line which is true but they usually died when they hit the ground and it was not recorded offically.

At the end of the day he his a beacon in aviation a rare (very these days) person who commands the respect of others through their acheivements i dont rmember who said but the line ‘ they will only ever remember the first man through the sound barrier and the first man in space’ was definately onto something.

curlyboy

Weatie’s Welch, He got a drive named after him I think!

Well do you know what happened to Weatie’s(RIP) in the end, it’s in Yeager’s book.

I think it prove’s who was the best pilot out of the two 😉 , and that Weatie’s dude cost the company MEGA buck’s in the end, what a mess.

It was HIS call, he reckoned the aeroplane was stable enough, which it never was.

Weatie’s came over to me as a great sale’s man of plane’s 😎 , but got caught out selling his own spin for the company’s sake(money talk’s I guess :rolleyes: ).

And paid he did for that mistake 🙁 , he doe’s not rank very high in the test pilot stake’s for me, just not the same league as Chuck 😉 .

There was also a pilot who punched I think a brand spanking new F-100 through a hangar(DOH), because he could not be bothered to read the manual to fly it, and learn it’s emergency system’s :rolleyes: .

He might have been the very same pilot Weatie’s, but I will have to dig the book out to be sure.

Could be one of the other very stuck up pilot’s on the base back then, mostly Ex ace type’s, and VERY full of them self’s because or that.

A Dick.Bong ring’s a bell.

A lot became street name’s and such, Only the very lucky and good one’s made it through, some were real dud’s.

Who was the Dude who Yeager said desroyed the Goblin program, said he could not fly formation very well and hit the mother ship, had to bail, and lost the little Ugly thing!.

I never thought the Gorbie would come to any good anyway, I’m glad he trashed it.

Ciao, Roll on! 😉

hmm Yeager. 1st to break the sound barrier? Nope! oh and the word “expendable” comes to mind also.
It’s about time they change history books and credit George Welch for it!

I read Yeager’s book when I was in my early teens and I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. Some of it had me laughing out loud, he’s a funny guy and yeah ok, I’ve read some of the negative comments about him but so what, he’s a living legend! The incident with the F104N is scary, and I thought they did it pretty effectively in The Right Stuff movie, although they did use a bit of artistic license.

Not another bashing thread!, their all show pony’s on that link! Buggger off (Please)

Not another attempt to turn thing’s ugly and off topic is it! 😡

I don’t care what the human Yeager is like really :rolleyes: , about the same as the rest of us Ape’s

YES, Of course he was all smile’s and nice on this show 😀 ,

It was a SUNDAY DOH, the once a week all get together and pretend to be a Christian day!, he’s sure to bed a devil the other 6 day’s, just like the rest of em :p .

What I like is HIM the Pilot, and just what this dude did, I think he earned the right to be a bit full of himself, don’t most people? :confused:

As for the first Man on the moon(which I can only just remmember, but did have a colouring book of it from that time given to me), well I got a blooody good giggle when Neil stick’s that T bird in the salt lake, with Chuck in the Back!, in his book!

I’ ll find the line between them both in the cockpit, it’s a ripper classic.

Now if you guy’s with nothing to do but look for hole’s, why don’t you go and look for

THE…..

” Perfect Human ” , It’s never been found yet through history and time, but you might get lucky who know’s.

Human%, Calcium and other mineral’s, water, salt, full of waste product’s, the lowest form of the mamalian primate ape chain.

I do hope that help’s :rolleyes:

Good luck with the hunt! 😉

NOW back to Yeager, that bible bashing show had some great footage, I was mesmorrized by it.

Now I do not want anymore pisssing or moaning about what so wrong with the human’s in the world, Tis just the way we are!

Please other Yeager fan’s

Speak up, and type,… please just the people who admire, General Chuck Yeager career like myself and I am damn sure many other’s 😉 .

Let’s roll :dev2:

Ciao and I think his own web(Chuck’s) site is pretty damn good too!

Chuck seemed a very nice old dude, and they should fly him at legend’s

http://www.aafo.com/hangartalk/showthread.php?t=3122&page=2&pp=10

Read from post 14 onwards.

T J