Rocket Planes
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This century has seen dramatic advances in aviation. The airplane has evolved in a continuous progression towards designs that fly higher, farther, and faster. At the close of World War II, aeronautical engineers had yet to build planes capable of exceeding the speed of sound. The technological innovations employed in the X series rocket planes, however, not only conquered sound barrier, but achieved a great deal as well. During World War II, combat pilots making power dives found that their planes began buffeting and their controls began to freeze up as they approached the speed of sound (Josephy, Jr. 383). This problem arose because of the compressibility of air. When a plane flies at that speed (approximately 760 miles per hour at sea level or Mach 1.0), the air particles ahead do not have time to change position and follow the shape of the oncoming wings or fuselage. Instead, they are compressed into a shock wave, or wall of "thick" air (Josephy, Jr. 383). This phenomenon creates unique problems for aeronautical engineers (Blacker 23). As a result, the "sound barrier" has always held a special significance for aviators and airplane designers. In 1944, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the Army, and the Navy began both independent and cooperative programs to develop high altitude and high speed vehicles (Von Braun 203). Starting with the wartime MX 324, the services advanced to the more advanced MX 653,
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he initial negotiations, Bell Aircraft Corporation had the first XS 1 ready for its initial glide flights (Hallion 192).
In mid November 1947 one month after Yeager's Mach 1 flight the Air Force authorized Bell Aircraft Corporation to begin the development of a series of advanced X 1 airplanes (Hallion 159 160). Their contract asked the company to build four aircraft; although the planes were to be similar in structure and performance characteristics, each would receive a different alphabetical suffix, i.e., X 1A, X 1B, X 1C, and X 1D (Hallion 160).
These letters differed so as to indicate each airplane's individual flight program (Hallion 160). The X 1C, for example, was to be a supersonic armament test airplane (Hallion 160). However, the availability of the F 86 for transonic weapons testing eventually caused the Air Force to drop procurement of that particular plane (Hallion 160). Bell continued their development of the other three however (Hallion 160).
These airplanes, the X 1A, X 1B, and the X 1D, each retained the same wing and tail planform as the XS 1 #1 (Hallion 160). They did differ in fuselage configuration though (Hallion 160). The design of the original XS 1 #1 had been flexible enough permit the adap
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3113
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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