"Chad Irby" wrote in message
...

When you break a speed record, one of the requirements is that you do it
in *level flight*.


But no such requirement existed for the first supersonic flight.



Putting a plane into a 40 degree dive kinda takes it out of the running,
especially since some American *prop* planes had probably done it before
1945. From reports, P-38 Lightnings had entered compressibility as far
back as 1941, and some had actually come out of it (not the safest
flight regime, back then).


No American prop plane ever exceeded the speed of sound. No German jet or
rocket fighter ever exceeded the speed of sound. If Yeager was not the
first to exceed the speed of sound, the only other possibility is that
George Welch in the XP-86 was the first.