Yeager wasn't the first.

[414Flyer]

Would have been impossible for the Me-262 to have done it, even though one German claims to have, but could not have happened. I dont think P-51 could have either, critical mach #s were too low for both planes.

Even USAF online mentions of Yeager refer to his breaking of the sound barrier as the first in level flight.

 

[charter dog]

I don't doubt that Welch's flight happened as described. By operating outside the officially sanctioned program to "break the sound barrier", there was never going to be an official recognition of any record breaking flight. Instead, this stunt, along with a solid record as a test pilot, made "Wheaties" Welch a cult hero within the flight test community. The official history will not be revised, no matter how many people Yeager alienates with his well-known abrasive manner. It's a great story though! Somebody could write a book of "unofficial" records. The first man to run the 100 in under 10 seconds may have done it before the stopwatch was even invented. A hungry predator might have inspired this "record". We'll never know.

Best,

 

[JustFly]

Because I don't know and out of curiousity, why do you say it is impossible for the Me-262 to do it?

 

[414Flyer]

Because around .85 or so, was as fast as one could go and still have control of the aircraft. Spitfire actually
had a higher critical mach number

 

[Gorilla]

Welch did it, and I think it's cool. The profile he flew was shown again and again over the years with other identical F-86's to break mach 1. The problem I have with Yeager is that he eagerly cashed in on the fame and apparently became a pompous a$$.

Contrast Neil Armstrong; he could be making $50K per speech to discuss the luck he had over the other astronauts in being selected as #1. Instead, he leads a quiet life and refuses to take advantage.

If some civilian guy in Gagarin's time orbited before him, would the feat be rejected because it wasn't an officially sanctioned, (Govt) event?

An interesting tidbit - some Luftwaffe airman could easily have broken Mach 6. How? Replace the explosives in a V-2 rocket with a capsule. Given German technology, I have no doubt those scientists could have figured out how to slow him down and parachute him to safety. The sound "barrier" was never a real barrier; it was coined in the hype leading up to Yeager's flight. Scientists knew rockets did it regularly. Even 16th century artillery guys knew their shells travelled faster than mach 1.

 

[A Squared]

OK, all of you folks who say Welch's flight didn't exist because it wasn't in an instrumented test aircraft with official observers; I assume that you all agree that Santos-DUmont in his 14bis was the first person to acheive powered, controlled, heavier than air flight, in 1906? I assume that you agree with all the french who claim that whatever the Wrights did or didn't accomplish was unimportant, as there were no *official* observers, so it didn't happen?

 

[Sig]

Prop planes can't break the sound barrier because the prop starts spinning so fast it basically becomes a giant disc in front of the airplane.

Not exactly true, jedi. The P38 would go trans-sonic in a dive and mach tuck (before they knew what it was) would getcha. The recovery, according to Captain GF C---, my grandfather with north of 1,300 hours in his logbook (in my lockbox upstairs back home) of Lightning time as an IP... was intense.

It was theory back then. You had to wait until the atmosphere was dense enough that yaw would air brake the plane and you wouldn't shake the fillings out of your teeth trying to pull out of an inverted dive with the shock waves still messing with the control surfaces. Yaw? FEATHER ONE. He "explored" the dynamics from a high altitude steep dive, and the tuck was very... scary as he!!, as he put it. After successfully doing that, he was ordered to take three IPs up in diamond for some whacked reason, he was tail end charlie calling the maneuver, and he watched three planes go BOOM. It affected him very deeply- he was in the booby hatch on Capri for 14 days. They never "explored" it again. He also disproved the P40's inability to snap roll with a belly tank- and not lose the tank. Piece of "schitt", as he called it. And the Mustang was for chicks.

As long as Cutty Sark is sold by the handle and cheap cigars are available at the Gator Hole (if it's even around) in Myrtle Beach, he ain't dyin.

 

[Papps]

Yeah i think most of the prop fighters that could get into the higher indicated speeds could get transonic in a dive, but all the mach tuck and compressibility stuff happens pretty low in the mach numbers on those wings, like just over .7ish.