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Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis

Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis

Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis

Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis achieved the first human-crewed supersonic flight in 1947. Captain Charles “Chuck” Yeager piloted USAF aircraft #46-062, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis for his wife.

The airplane was drop-launched from the bomb bay of a modified B-29 Superfortress bomber and reached Mach 1.06 or 700 miles per hour (1,100 km/h). Following burnout of the engine, the plane glided to a landing on the dry lake bed.

The Bell X-1 was a rocket engine-powered aircraft, conceived in 1944 and designed and built-in 1945.

The X-1, piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-planes, a series of experimental planes for testing of new technologies and often kept secret.

Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis

This X-1-1, Air Force Serial Number 46-062, was flown to Washington, D.C., beneath a B-29 and presented to what was then the American National Air Museum in 1950.

Its color is “International Orange,” a color used in the aerospace industry to set objects apart from their surroundings, similar to safety orange, but deeper and with a more reddish tone.

Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis

  • Title:                    Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis
  • Date:                    1945
  • Crew:                   One
  • Length:                30 ft 11 in (9.4 m)
  • Wingspan:          28 ft (8.5 m)
  • Height:                10 ft (3.3 m)
  • Loaded weight: 12,225 lb (5,545 kg)
  • Powerplant:       one × Reaction Motors XLR-11-RM3 liquid-propellant rocket,
  • Max speed:         957 mph (Mach 1.26) (1,541 km/h)
  • Range:                 Five minutes (powered endurance)
  • Museum:             National Air and Space Museum

Chuck Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier — X-1 — 1947

Tour of the National Air and Space Museum

A Tour of Air and Space Museums

The Bell X-1 (XS-1) “Sound Barrier” October 14, 1947

Science and Technology Museums

Plane Was Designed like a Giant Bullet to Break Sound Barrier: X-1 Bell History

Military and War Museums and Memorials

Bell X-1 Ground Launch, January 1949

~~~

“Isn’t it astonishing that all these secrets have been preserved for so many years,
just so we could discover them!”

-Orville Wright

~~~


Photo Credit: 1)By Joyofmuseums (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 2) Ad Meskens [Attribution, CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

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