1947 was a tumultuous year for the US armed forces. The U.S. Air Force was created as a separate service in September and on 14 October Captain Charles “Chuck” Yeager broke the sound barrier in the first manned supersonic flight. At the controls of an XS-1 rocket plane, built by Bell Aircraft. The plane was named Glamorous Glennis after Chuck’s wife. It was launched from the bomb-bay of a B-29 Superfortress and after accelerating to 1299 km/h peak speed, it glided to a landing on a dry lake-bed. Over course all this was top secret but nevertheless, the story was leaked to the press and Aviation Week carried an article on this ground-breaking event on 20 December 1947.
The rest is history…