The Simple Discovery That Let Us Fly Faster Than the Speed of Sound

Breaking the sound barrier is considered one of the greatest achievements of aviation, but how exactly did we manage to fly faster than sound?

Read More:

Gen. Chuck Yeager Describes How He Broke The Sound Barrier
The Bell XS-1 No. 1 streaked past the speed of sound that morning without too much fanfare-broken ribs notwithstanding. And when the Mach indicator stuttered off the scale barely 5 minutes after the drop from our mother B-29, America entered the second great age of aviation development.

Ultrafast Camera Captures 'Sonic Booms' of Light for First Time
"Just as aircraft flying at supersonic speeds create cone-shaped sonic booms, pulses of light can leave behind cone-shaped wakes of light. Now, a superfast camera has captured the first-ever video of these events."

Can You Survive Breaking The Sound Barrier?
"When an object moves through the atmosphere, it has to move the air molecules in front of it out of the way. As objects approach the speed of sound, air forms a "pressure wave" around the object. In order to exceed the speed of sound, it has to pierce that pressure wave, which can be heard by observers on the ground as a sonic boom."

____________________

Seeker inspires us to see the world through the lens of science and evokes a sense of curiosity, optimism and adventure.

Special thanks to Julian Huguet for hosting and writing this episode of Seeker!

[TMWriting]

You guys sure are getting your money’s worth out of that “airflow over a wing” graphic

[dukecoupe]

The main change that allowed faster than sound flight wasn't the swept wing, but the "flying tail". On sub-sonic planes, a hinged portion of the elevator and rudder move. It was found during the experiments with the X1 that if the entire elevator and rudder were made to move instead of a hinged part, control could be maintained as the plane passed through the speed of sound.

[everythingman]

The X-1 had straight wings and still broke the sound barrier.... the two biggest innovations that allowed for controllable supersonic flight are the stabilator and area ruling.

[NewMessage]

That asymmetrical beardie's triggered my OCD... If I try to trim the monitor again, *you're* explaining that to my shrink!

[emnathtimsina]

Happy to see you Julian... Finally you are back...

[Master_Therion]

Are sonic booms created by the "speed of sound" or the "sound of speed?" Think about it...

[NoahNobody]

It would be interesting to see what machine learning can do with aeroplane design.

[JustinMorgankg]

I was at Wright Patt Airfiece base on September 11th during the attacks in 2001. Jets were supposedly ordered to break the sound barrier over the city (Dayton, OH). Probably would have been pretty cool except everyone was in a huge panic at the moment and it sounded like we were being bombed.

[davidinmossy]

Crazy to think in over a hundred years we have went from a plane made from bike parts and went about as far as a football field to flying faster than sound and getting into space. Science is fucking awesome !

[jman]

"7 years ago, October 1947."

Not sure that's how it works

[kenwoods]

THE BEST EXPLANATION I have ever heard. I'm 30yo and finally understand why there's a BOOM

[djtumble]

Area Rule!!! Ive been trying to remember that all day, and nobody has mentioned that in any of their really dumbed down video school projects. thanks Everythingman.

[LifeofBrianB]

3:12 Hopefully a vid without YouTube buffering or lag in general lol

[abhijitkmt]

That's a magical journey from old days aeroplane to today's jet

[ketsu]

70 years ago they said breaking the speed of sound was not possible. Now we can go faster than that, it means that going faster than the speed of light will be possible in the future

[Steve]

THANK YOU! for doing your own voice work rather than cheapening out with a robo voice.

[mikebauer]

Swept wings increase the effective wing width in the same way angling armor on tanks creates ‘thicker’ armor; the hypotenuse rather than the straight edges.

[zuffin]

Artificial islands seem very farfetched at the moment, but with many opportunities for shallow waters to be built upon in the Pacific, this idea may become common practice in years to come.

[kentonkirkpatrick]

My favorite speed story is the fighter jet that fired its guns at something straight ahead and was going so fast it caught up to its own bullets and actually shot itself down. Doh!

[saumitrachakravarty]

Breaking the speed of light might become routine someday for space travel.