Cold Open

It’s October 10th, 1947, 40,000 feet above the Mojave Desert in California.

24-year-old First Lieutenant Chuck Yeager holds the controls of his X-1 aircraft as it speeds through the sky. He gently pushes a lever forward, increasing the thrust of his jet engines. The aircraft responds, and Chuck watches the airspeed indicator creep up to Mach 0.997, or almost 700 miles per hour—faster than any human has flown before.

Although breaking the air speed record is a remarkable achievement, that’s not the point of today’s mission. The aim of this experimental plane isn’t just to fly faster than anyone has gone before. It’s to eventually go faster than the speed of sound—and today’s flight is another step toward achieving that goal.

Chuck reports over the radio that he’s hit the target speed—the last objective they need to check off before attempting to break the sound barrier. And so with today’s mission accomplished, he gently pulls back on the stick, aiming to lift the plane’s nose to slow it down. But nothing happens.

Chuck pulls on the controls harder, but it still has no effect. A sense of horror grips Chuck as he realizes he’s lost control of the X-1.

But Chuck’s training kicks in and he forces himself to think logically. He reaches for another lever and eases back the throttle. And as the plane decelerates, Chuck tries moving the controls again. This time the nose does lift, although it’s slow to respond.

Now confident that it’s the plane’s speed that’s affecting its handling, Chuck flips a switch and shuts down the jet engines. With no forward thrust, the plane slows even more quickly—and as its airspeed drops, Chuck regains control of the aircraft.

With a sigh of relief, Chuck transmits a message that today’s flight is over and he’s coming in to land. But he does so with a heavy heart. This unforeseen technical setback could put the entire project in jeopardy.

The problems with the X-1 convince some engineers that their mission is impossible. But Chuck Yeager feels certain that the aircraft is close to making aviation history, so he’ll take the brave decision to push forward despite the uncertainty. He’ll soon take to the skies again, and, on his very next flight, Chuck Yeager will become the first human to break the sound barrier on October 14th, 1947.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is October 14th, 1947: Breaking the Sound Barrier.

Act One

It’s March 5th, 1944, in a field in the southwest of France, two and a half years before Chuck Yeager’s attempt to fly faster than the speed of sound.

As gunfire echoes all around him, 21-year-old Chuck quickly rolls up his silk parachute and sprints through the tall grass toward a patch of trees. When he reaches cover, Chuck hides the parachute under a bush and then himself scrambles under its branches. All he can do now is hide and hope he hasn’t been spotted.

One year ago, Chuck Yeager received his pilot wings from the US Army Air Force. He was shipped to Europe to join the fight against Nazi Germany, and he showed flashes of promise behind the controls of a P-39 fighter, shooting down his first enemy aircraft yesterday. But today, the tables have turned. Chuck’s plane has been shot down—and he’s been forced to bail out over occupied territory.

Daylight soon fades, and Chuck spends an uncomfortable night in the undergrowth. He’s almost 200 miles from the safety of neutral Spain and knows the likelihood of reaching the border without help is slim. So the next morning, when he spots a French woodcutter, Chuck crawls out carefully from under the bush. He has no idea whether the woodcutter will turn him in. But it's a chance he has to take. And thankfully, the woodcutter is no fan of the Germans, so he helps Chuck to contact the French Resistance.

For the next two weeks, Chuck hides in the woods and takes shelter in Resistance safe houses, never staying in one place for more than a few hours. He joins Resistance fighters when they recover supplies dropped from a British plane, and he helps some set fuses on plastic explosives used to blow up German convoys. After 18 days on the run, Chuck is then smuggled into a van with three other downed American airmen. They’re driven to the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains that separate France from Spain. And then, Chuck and the other airmen spend the next four days trekking over the mountain passes. At one point, they’re almost captured by a German border patrol, but Chuck and his fellow fliers eventually make it to safety, walking into a Spanish police station and asking for the American consul.

Six weeks later, Chuck returns to England and rejoins his squadron. But now, Chuck's told he can’t fly over occupied Europe again. Since he’s been shot down over enemy territory and escaped with the help of the French Resistance, Chuck’s banned from active combat—because if he’s shot down again and captured, he might be tortured to give away the identities of those who helped him.

But Chuck has no intention of staying grounded. He petitions his superior officers to be allowed back in the air. He even pleads his case directly to the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower—and Chuck’s bravery impresses the general. Thanks to Eisenhower’s intervention, Chuck is cleared for active combat again and it’s a decision that pays off.

In October 1944, five months after returning to duty, Chuck spots a squadron of enemy fighters circling over the German city of Hanover. Chuck uses the sun to mask his fighter group’s attack, and the Germans don’t spot the American planes until they are almost on top of them. Only then does one of the German pilots finally takes evasive action, breaking away in a sudden turn—but his plane collides with the one next to him. Both German planes go down without Chuck having to fire a shot.

But in the dogfight that follows, it is Chuck's shooting that brings down another two German fighters. Then, he pursues an enemy aircraft into a steep dive, firing bullets at its tail. Chuck pulls out of the dive at 1,000 feet, but the German pilot leaves it too late and slams into the ground. Later that day, when Chuck is debriefed, he’s credited with shooting down the two planes that collided and the one that crashed. When these are added with his two more conventional kills, Chuck becomes an “ace in a day”—a pilot credited with five kills in a single mission.

And by the time the war comes to an end, Chuck Yeager will have downed 12 enemy planes in all, and he’ll share credit for shooting down one more. As one of the US Army’s best pilots, Chuck will be given his choice of peacetime assignments. But there’ll only be one option for him. Chuck Yeager will become a test pilot, flying experimental airplanes and pushing technological development right to the edge.

Act Two

It’s October 11th, 1946, in the skies over Muroc Air Force Base in California, one year after the end of World War Two.

24-year-old Chalmers Goodlin presses a switch to lower his plane’s landing gear and checks that he’s in line with the runway. With everything looking good, Chalmers radios that he’s on his final approach. It’s a landing he needs to get right because there’s no way of aborting and going around again. Chalmers is flying an experimental aircraft—and it has no working engines.

Four years ago, Chalmers was released from active duty in the US Navy and hired by Bell Aircraft as a test pilot. Chalmers worked on several prototype jet fighters, but none went into production. A few weeks ago, though, Chalmers was assigned to a new project: the X-1, a jet designed to break the sound barrier. This morning, Chalmers got behind the controls for the first time as the X-1 was flown into the air strapped to a B-29 Superfortress before being released at altitude. Today’s flight is designed to test the X-1’s handling, so Chalmers has been tasked with gliding back to the airbase without firing up the engines.

And soon a gentle bump signals to Chalmers that he’s successfully piloted the X-1 back down to the ground. But he doesn’t allow himself to celebrate for too long, because he knows his work is only just beginning.

Over the next nine months, Chalmers makes 26 flights in the X-1 as Bell’s engineers fine-tune the plane’s innovative design. Since the X-1 is probing boundaries that have never been broken before, the engineers take it slow. Modifications are tested one at a time, and they often come across unexpected problems. Like when Chalmers is authorized to fire up the engines, the X-1 accelerates so quickly that Chalmers almost loses control. After that scare, Chalmers requests extra pay to compensate him for the dangerous nature of the assignment, and engineers only allow the top speed to increase by an extra 13 miles per hour every flight.

But this slow caution is frustrating US Air Force. As tensions with the USSR increase, it’s become a priority that American technology stay ahead of the Soviets’. Eventually, the government cancels Bell’s contract to develop a supersonic plane and the US Air Force takes direct control of the X-1 program. One of the first changes they make is to bring in new blood in the cockpit. Chalmers Goodlin is taken off the project, and World War Two fighter ace Chuck Yeager is appointed lead test pilot.

Under this new regime, X-1 test flights proceed at a faster pace. Aware that the generals want quick results, Chuck pushes his X-1 right to its limits. On his fourth flight, he reaches Mach 0.85, or 560 miles per hour. But the X-1 encounters such severe buffeting that Chuck fears the plane will rip itself apart. The engineers try to fix the issue, but as Chuck pushes the X-1 to fly faster on the next three flights, he finds that the plane’s nose suddenly rises or dips without warning. Some engineers think that the technical problems are indications that an airplane simply can not travel faster than the speed of sound—and if it does, the results could be catastrophic.

But despite these doubts, the test program continues. Still, problems keep coming. On his eighth flight, Chuck reaches Mach 0.997 before he realizes he can’t move the elevator flaps on the aircraft’s tail and can’t control the X-1’s pitch.

When he is back on solid ground, Chuck discusses this problem with his crew. They conclude that a shock wave is stopping the elevator flaps from moving—and they come up with a possible solution. The X-1 has a moveable tail. And if Chuck can alter its angle in tiny increments, it might allow him to change the plane’s pitch without using the flaps at all. Although this solution is untested, Chuck decides to give it a go. He’ll push the X-1 to its limits and see if he can break the sound barrier on his very next flight.

But two days before take-off, disaster strikes. Chuck falls from a horse while riding in the Mojave Desert and breaks two ribs. With questions already being asked about whether the X-1 is capable of supersonic flight, Chuck knows that this latest setback might end the program for good. So rather than seek treatment from Air Force doctors, Chuck goes to a civilian doctor and disguises his identity.

Chuck will leave the doctor’s office with his ribs taped up—but he’ll be determined to complete the mission. He’ll ignore the pain and doubts over the plane’s controls, and when he takes to the skies again, it will be with the intention of becoming the first pilot to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Act Three

It’s October 14th, 1947, in the bomb bay of a B-29 Superfortress high above the Mojave Desert, four days after Chuck Yeager lost control of his X-1 during a test flight.

Chuck winces as he slides into the narrow cockpit, thankful that his helmet hides his grimace from the crewman charged with strapping him into the plane. When Chuck gives a thumbs-up, the crewman then lowers the cockpit roof into place. Normally, reaching up and locking the cockpit roof is a simple task for Chuck. But two days ago, he fell from his horse and broke his ribs. Now, he can’t even lift his arms above his head.

But Chuck has planned for this situation. He reaches beside his seat and picks up a hook he’s made from an old broom handle. As the crewman looks on with a puzzled expression, Chuck uses the hook to turn the locks and secure the cockpit roof.

Then over the next few minutes, Chuck checks his instruments as the Superfortress cruises at 20,000 feet. And when he’s ready, Chuck then casts off and fires up his X-1’s engines. He accelerates away, climbing to 40,000 feet and leaving the Superfortress far behind. As his plane gains speed, Chuck tests the moveable tail. He finds he still has control of the X-1’s pitch this time, even as it approaches the speed of sound. So, he decides to push the plane a little faster.

Chuck taps the throttle one more time—only to see the needle on his airspeed indicator jump off the scale. Puzzled, Chuck maintains speed for 20 seconds, but the needle doesn’t correct itself. With an air of resignation, he radios the Superfortress and tells them that there’s a problem with the instruments. But Chuck’s transmission is interrupted by an ecstatic observer stationed on the ground. He radios that he just heard a sonic boom. The airspeed indicator only malfunctioned because Chuck has broken through the sound barrier.

When he lands, Chuck finds out that when he tapped the throttle, he accelerated to Mach 1.06, or 700 miles an hour. He and his test team drive to Chuck’s house to celebrate with martinis—but for the moment, they must keep their achievement to themselves. The Air Force doesn’t want the Soviets to find out about America’s latest technological advance.

It will be eight months before the military declassifies Chuck’s record-breaking flight. And when the news hits, Chuck becomes an American hero overnight. But he doesn’t enjoy being in the limelight—he’s much more home by himself in the cockpit. So, after the excitement dies down, Chuck chooses to return to active service. He’ll fly US Air Force jets during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and he’ll only retire in 1975 after more than three decades as a fighter pilot. But the most significant moment of his long flying career will forever remain the test flight in which he became the first human in history to travel faster than the speed of sound on October 14th, 1947.

Outro

Next on History Daily. October 15th, 1674. The Torsåker Witch Trials begin in northern Sweden, leading to the execution of 71 innocent people in a single day.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by William Simpson.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.