Highlights of the aviation age, Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier at Muroc, California. On 14 October 1947, travelling 45,000 feet above the Mojave desert in California, Major Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force broke the sound barrier. He was flying the Bell X-1, which had been dropped from a modified B-29 bomber at 26,000 feet, before sequentially opening the taps on the aircraft’s four rockets.
Charles Elwood “Chuck” Yeager, born February 13, 1923, is a retired major general in the United States Air Force and noted test pilot. He was the first pilot to travel faster than sound (1947). Originally retiring in 1975 as a brigadier general, Yeager was promoted to major general on the Air Force’s retired list in 2005 for his military achievements. His career began in World War II as a private in the United States Army Air Forces. After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in September 1942 he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted to the rank of flight officer (the World War II USAAF equivalent to warrant officer) and became a North American P-51 Mustang fighter pilot. After the war he became a test pilot of many kinds of aircraft and rocket planes. Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m). Although Scott Crossfield was the first man to fly faster than Mach 2 in 1953, Yeager shortly thereafter set a new record of Mach 2.44.
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