October 14

Sound Barrier Broken by Yeager!

On this day in 1947, Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager was the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound. Yeager was an Army pilot who tested new kinds of aircraft. He was chosen to try a secret airplane called the X-1, which looked like a bullet-shaped rocket. He passed the speed of sound, which is called the sonic barrier, when his plane flew more than 1060 kilometers per hour (660 miles per hour)! The fast motion of his plane caused a sonic boom that sounded like thunder.