On this day in aviation history, January 19, 1946, the Bell X-1 high-speed research aircraft, made its first flight. While this first flight was in fact a gliding test, the X-1 would become the first ...

On October 14, 1947, Captain Chuck Yeager piloted the Bell X-1 aircraft, "Glamorous Glennis," achieving a speed of Mach 1.06. This flight disproved prevailing expert warnings that exceeding Mach 1 ...

The plane had no armaments and little maneuverability. But it had speed. It’s easy today to take crossing the sound barrier for granted. Doing so has become relatively commonplace. The majority of ...

When Chuck Yeager reached Mach 1 on October 14, 1947, the entire frame of his Bell X-1 aircraft suddenly started to shake, and the controls went. A crew observing the flight in a van on the ground ...

CC0 Usage Conditions ApplyClick for more information. The Bell X-1 was a rocket-powered aircraft designed and built by Bell Aircraft in 1946 for a joint research project with the National Advisory ...

The countdown has begun for the XB-1’s “historic” first supersonic test flight that should break the sound barrier, according to Boom Supersonic. The test flight for the Boom Supersonic XB-1, a ...

Artist’s concept of the Bell X-Plane. Source | Bell Textron Inc. Bell Textron Inc. (Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.), a Textron Inc. company, has been down-selected for Phase 2 of the Defense Advanced ...