
After considering hydrogen peroxide monopropellant, aniline/ nitric acid bipropellant, and nitromethane monopropellant as fuels, the rocket burned ethyl alcohol diluted with water with a liquid oxygen oxidizer. The rocket engine was a four-chamber design built by Reaction Motors Inc., one of the first companies to build liquid-propellant rocket engines in the U.S. įollowing conversion of the X-1's horizontal tail to all-moving (or "all-flying"), test pilot Chuck Yeager verified it experimentally, and all subsequent supersonic aircraft would either have an all-moving tailplane or be "tailless" delta winged types. After the rocket plane experienced compressibility problems during 1947, it was modified with a variable-incidence tailplane following technology transfer with the United Kingdom. As the design might lead to a fighter, the XS-1 was intended to take off from the ground, but the end of the war made the B-29 Superfortress available to carry it into the air. Swept wings were not used because too little was known about them. The shape was followed to the extent of seating its pilot behind a sloped, framed window inside a confined cockpit in the nose, with no ejection seat. 50-caliber (12.7 mm) machine gun bullet, known to be stable in supersonic flight. The X-1 was, in principle, a "bullet with wings", its shape closely resembling a Browning. An aircraft with both turbojet and rocket engines would be too large and complex. Turbojets could not achieve the required performance at high altitude. The aircraft's designers built a rocket plane after considering alternatives. Army Air Forces Flight Test Division and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) contracted with the Bell Aircraft Company to build three XS-1 (for "Experimental, Supersonic", later X-1) aircraft to obtain flight data on conditions in the transonic speed range. Early specifications for the aircraft were for a piloted supersonic vehicle that could fly at 800 miles per hour (1,300 km/h) at 35,000 feet (11,000 m) for two to five minutes. The XS-1 was first discussed in December 1944. A variable-incidence tail appeared to be the most promising solution and having already decided on it for the M.52, the Miles and the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) tests supported this. Bell was battling the problem of pitch control due to "blanking" the elevators. Unknown to Miles, Bell had already started construction of a rocket-powered supersonic design of their own, with a conventional horizontal tail. reneged on the agreement and no data was forthcoming in return. Miles' Chief Aerodynamicist Dennis Bancroft stated that Bell Aircraft personnel visited Miles later in 1944, and were given access to the drawings and research on the M.52, but the U.S. Later that year, the Air Ministry signed an agreement with the United States to exchange high-speed research and data. The project resulted in the development of the prototype turbojet-powered Miles M.52, designed to reach 1,000 miles per hour (870 kn 1,600 km/h) (over twice the existing airspeed record) in level flight, and to climb to an altitude of 36,000 ft (11 km) in 1 min and 30 sec.īy 1944, design of the M.52 was 90% complete and Miles was told to go ahead with the construction of three prototypes. In 1942, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Aviation began a top secret project with Miles Aircraft to develop the world's first aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier.
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The X-1 aircraft #46-062, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis and piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first manned airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-planes, a series of American experimental rocket planes (and non-rocket planes) designed for testing new technologies. A derivative of this same design, the Bell X-1A, having greater fuel capacity and hence longer rocket burning time, exceeded 1,600 miles per hour (2,600 km/h 1,400 kn) in 1954. Conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it achieved a speed of nearly 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km/h 870 kn) in 1948. Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. The Bell X-1 ( Bell Model 44) is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated originally as the XS-1, and was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics– U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
