Chuck Yeager and the IAF

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Funny story:
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Although Yeager is without question one of the finest sticks the United
States military has ever turned out, and he is entitled to many accolades
involving his fine career, the following statement accompanying the
photograph of Gen Yeager from this article is incorrect.

"The first man to break the sound barrier - Brigadier General Charles E
"Chuck" Yeager, USAF."

In fact, Chuck Yeager was the first man to beak the speed of sound in LEVEL
FLIGHT.
His flight in the X1 at Edwards followed by a week the flight of the first
man to actually break the sound barrier. That man was George Welch. The
aircraft was the North American F86 prototype.
Dudley Henriques

Dudley Henriques wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Funny story:
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Hi...unPrakash.html


Although Yeager is without question one of the finest sticks the
United States military has ever turned out, and he is entitled to
many accolades involving his fine career, the following statement
accompanying the photograph of Gen Yeager from this article is
incorrect.
"The first man to break the sound barrier - Brigadier General Charles
E "Chuck" Yeager, USAF."

In fact, Chuck Yeager was the first man to beak the speed of sound in
LEVEL FLIGHT.
His flight in the X1 at Edwards followed by a week the flight of the
first man to actually break the sound barrier. That man was George
Welch. The aircraft was the North American F86 prototype.
Dudley Henriques

And there are stories of pilots during WWII doing it in powered dives. But
the X1 was the first to do it with only the power it's engines were
producing.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...

And there are stories of pilots during WWII doing it in powered dives.

But those are just stories.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Dudley Henriques wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Funny story:
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Hi...unPrakash.html


Although Yeager is without question one of the finest sticks the
United States military has ever turned out, and he is entitled to
many accolades involving his fine career, the following statement
accompanying the photograph of Gen Yeager from this article is
incorrect.
"The first man to break the sound barrier - Brigadier General Charles
E "Chuck" Yeager, USAF."

In fact, Chuck Yeager was the first man to beak the speed of sound in
LEVEL FLIGHT.
His flight in the X1 at Edwards followed by a week the flight of the
first man to actually break the sound barrier. That man was George
Welch. The aircraft was the North American F86 prototype.
Dudley Henriques

And there are stories of pilots during WWII doing it in powered dives. But
the X1 was the first to do it with only the power it's engines were
producing.

Actually, no prop fighter can exceed mach 1, as a shock wave builds on the
propeller disc and the prop itself will prevent supersonic airflow. The tips
however can easily go supersonic and can easily cause catastrophic failure
at the prop hub.
I had a friend who experimented deeply into the transonic range with prop
fighters while a test pilot for Curtis Wright. Using a P47 Thunderbolt and
many different propeller combinations, Herb Fisher never actually got the
Jug through the barrier.
Another friend, Erik Shilling of the Flying Tigers, lost a good friend when
the friend was playing around with a P40 in China. In a deep dive over the
field, the prop was heard to go supersonic just before it tore the P40 apart
in the air.
Tony Levier from Lockheed did many deep dives in the P38 dealing with mach
tuck and never put the Lightning through the barrier. The Brits at Boscombe
Down after the war worked with Spitfires in high mach dives with no success
there either.
On the German side, one ME-262 driver was absolutely certain he had gone
mach 1 in a dive, but later tests proved he was dealing with the lag in his
pitot static system as that affected his airspeed readout. The 262 due to
design couldn't break mach 1 anyway which later tests at Wright Pat proved
out without question.
I personally have a P51 out to about .70 mach in a dive and I can tell you
it was one scary experience :-))
George Welch did it the week before Yeager while on a test flight in the
Sabre prototype.
Through the years of my own career, I either knew or met at least a half
dozed people who were at Pancho's bar eating lunch the day Welch went
through. The boom knocked all the pictures off the walls at Pancho's. The
story goes she wasn't all that happy about it either as she liked Yeager and
knew of the rivalry to be the first. But that's another story :-))
Dudley Henriques

Dudley

Some additional comments.

I took a P-40N above 25K and rolled over in a full throttle dive and
ran the air speed up as far as I could. Never came close to Mach One
and bird didn't come unglued either (thank God). Oh to be so young and
inicient again )

Never ran the P-51D/K over 505 MPH (red line). Had a number of friends
from ETO who said they ran the A/S well over red line in a dive when
being chased by a 109. The 109 was supposed to have a weak tail and
would come unglued in a very high airspeed dive. The P-51 terminal
velocity dive tactic was an escape maneuver.

The Jug in a terminal velocity dive tended to tuck. If you cut power
it tucked harder. To recover you had to keep a high power setting and
wait until you got to a lower altitude when you could recover.

The P-38 ended up getting some dive boards so it may have gotten a
little closer to Mach One than the rest of the WWII fighters????

All I remember from that era.

Big John
***************************************

On Thu, 24 May 2007 16:40:16 -0400, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Dudley Henriques wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Funny story:
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Hi...unPrakash.html


Although Yeager is without question one of the finest sticks the
United States military has ever turned out, and he is entitled to
many accolades involving his fine career, the following statement
accompanying the photograph of Gen Yeager from this article is
incorrect.
"The first man to break the sound barrier - Brigadier General Charles
E "Chuck" Yeager, USAF."

In fact, Chuck Yeager was the first man to beak the speed of sound in
LEVEL FLIGHT.
His flight in the X1 at Edwards followed by a week the flight of the
first man to actually break the sound barrier. That man was George
Welch. The aircraft was the North American F86 prototype.
Dudley Henriques

And there are stories of pilots during WWII doing it in powered dives. But
the X1 was the first to do it with only the power it's engines were
producing.

Actually, no prop fighter can exceed mach 1, as a shock wave builds on the
propeller disc and the prop itself will prevent supersonic airflow. The tips
however can easily go supersonic and can easily cause catastrophic failure
at the prop hub.
I had a friend who experimented deeply into the transonic range with prop
fighters while a test pilot for Curtis Wright. Using a P47 Thunderbolt and
many different propeller combinations, Herb Fisher never actually got the
Jug through the barrier.
Another friend, Erik Shilling of the Flying Tigers, lost a good friend when
the friend was playing around with a P40 in China. In a deep dive over the
field, the prop was heard to go supersonic just before it tore the P40 apart
in the air.
Tony Levier from Lockheed did many deep dives in the P38 dealing with mach
tuck and never put the Lightning through the barrier. The Brits at Boscombe
Down after the war worked with Spitfires in high mach dives with no success
there either.
On the German side, one ME-262 driver was absolutely certain he had gone
mach 1 in a dive, but later tests proved he was dealing with the lag in his
pitot static system as that affected his airspeed readout. The 262 due to
design couldn't break mach 1 anyway which later tests at Wright Pat proved
out without question.
I personally have a P51 out to about .70 mach in a dive and I can tell you
it was one scary experience :-))
George Welch did it the week before Yeager while on a test flight in the
Sabre prototype.
Through the years of my own career, I either knew or met at least a half
dozed people who were at Pancho's bar eating lunch the day Welch went
through. The boom knocked all the pictures off the walls at Pancho's. The
story goes she wasn't all that happy about it either as she liked Yeager and
knew of the rivalry to be the first. But that's another story :-))
Dudley Henriques

Hi John;
see inserts;


"Big John" wrote in message
...
Dudley

Some additional comments.

I took a P-40N above 25K and rolled over in a full throttle dive and
ran the air speed up as far as I could. Never came close to Mach One
and bird didn't come unglued either (thank God). Oh to be so young and
inicient again )

Do you happen to remember on that dive if you had to retard throttle on the
way down to prevent overspeed? What happened to Erik Shilling's buddy (Pete
Adkinson) in China most Erik told me Adkinson was diving the P40 over the
field to "wake everyone up" Everyone on the field heard a high pitched
scream from the airplane just before it came apart in the air. This would
have been the tips overspeeding well past mach one. Erik was involved in the
accident investigation team reporting to Chennault on what probably
happened. The governor and prop were still in one piece when they hit the
ground which led Erik to conclude that governor failure with prop overspeed
might not have been the cause. He concluded that some cowling fasteners
(Duez) might have come off allowing high speed air into the engine
compartment causing intense forces. Interesting story. I've never actually
been convinced it wasn't a prop overspeed but of course I wasn't there.





Never ran the P-51D/K over 505 MPH (red line). Had a number of friends
from ETO who said they ran the A/S well over red line in a dive when
being chased by a 109. The 109 was supposed to have a weak tail and
would come unglued in a very high airspeed dive. The P-51 terminal
velocity dive tactic was an escape maneuver.

My high speed dive was the result of an O2 failure at high altitude during a
ferry flight. I woke up with the stick walking all over the cockpit and deep
into compressibility. The governor had reached it's limit and we figured if
I hadn't come around to realizing what was happening, it could easily have
turned out differently than it did :-)

The Jug in a terminal velocity dive tended to tuck. If you cut power
it tucked harder. To recover you had to keep a high power setting and
wait until you got to a lower altitude when you could recover.

Nothing outdives a Republic "Brick" :-))

The P-38 ended up getting some dive boards so it may have gotten a
little closer to Mach One than the rest of the WWII fighters????

The L solved a lot of issues for the 38 if I remember. Hope you finally got
to fly one.

Dudley Henriques

In article ,
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:

Dudley Henriques wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Funny story:
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Hi...unPrakash.html


Although Yeager is without question one of the finest sticks the
United States military has ever turned out, and he is entitled to
many accolades involving his fine career, the following statement
accompanying the photograph of Gen Yeager from this article is
incorrect.
"The first man to break the sound barrier - Brigadier General Charles
E "Chuck" Yeager, USAF."

In fact, Chuck Yeager was the first man to beak the speed of sound in
LEVEL FLIGHT.
His flight in the X1 at Edwards followed by a week the flight of the
first man to actually break the sound barrier. That man was George
Welch. The aircraft was the North American F86 prototype.
Dudley Henriques

And there are stories of pilots during WWII doing it in powered dives. But
the X1 was the first to do it with only the power it's engines were
producing.

Those stories arose from the highly erroneous airspeed indications in
the transonic regime. No propeller-driven plane has gone fully
supersonic -- limiting Mach for them is in the .65 - .85 range. The drag
of both the airframe and the propeller disk are higher than the weight
and residual thrust of the engine to go any faster in a teminal dive. In
addition, transonic flutter is a major player here.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Dudley Henriques wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Funny story:
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Hi...unPrakash.html


Although Yeager is without question one of the finest sticks the
United States military has ever turned out, and he is entitled to
many accolades involving his fine career, the following statement
accompanying the photograph of Gen Yeager from this article is
incorrect.
"The first man to break the sound barrier - Brigadier General Charles
E "Chuck" Yeager, USAF."

In fact, Chuck Yeager was the first man to beak the speed of sound in
LEVEL FLIGHT.
His flight in the X1 at Edwards followed by a week the flight of the
first man to actually break the sound barrier. That man was George
Welch. The aircraft was the North American F86 prototype.
Dudley Henriques

And there are stories of pilots during WWII doing it in powered dives. But
the X1 was the first to do it with only the power it's engines were
producing.

....under monitored conditions (ICAO?).

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...

Although Yeager is without question one of the finest sticks the United
States military has ever turned out, and he is entitled to many accolades
involving his fine career, the following statement accompanying the
photograph of Gen Yeager from this article is incorrect.

"The first man to break the sound barrier - Brigadier General Charles E
"Chuck" Yeager, USAF."

In fact, Chuck Yeager was the first man to beak the speed of sound in
LEVEL FLIGHT.
His flight in the X1 at Edwards followed by a week the flight of the first
man to actually break the sound barrier. That man was George Welch. The
aircraft was the North American F86 prototype.
Dudley Henriques

Fact? A fact is something known to be true; a verifiable truth known by
actual experience or observation. It is a fact that Yeager exceeded Mach 1
in the X-1, Welch PROBABLY did it earlier in the XF-86, but there is no
verifiable evidence that he did.