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Article

Faster than sound

OCT 01, 1948
The research that must be done on men and machines in supersonic flight is outlined by the Director of Aeronautical Research for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
Hugh L. Dryden

On October 14, 1947, Captain Charles E. Yeager, U.S. Air Force, became the first man to reach, in a piloted airplane, sustained horizontal flight at a speed faster than sound, marking the dawn of the supersonic age. Since that day many flights of the Bell XS‐I research airplane have been made at supersonic speeds by Captain Yeager and two other Air Force pilots, Major G. E. Lundquist and Captain J. T. Fitzgerald, and by Herbert H. Hoover and the late Howard Lilly, research pilots of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 1, Number 6

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