Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis

Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis achieved the first human-crewed supersonic flight in 1947. Captain Charles “Chuck” Yeager piloted USAF aircraft #46-062, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis for his wife.

The airplane was drop-launched from the bomb bay of a modified B-29 Superfortress bomber and reached Mach 1.06 or 700 miles per hour (1,100 km/h). Following burnout of the engine, the plane glided to a landing on the dry lake bed.

The Bell X-1 was a rocket engine-powered aircraft, conceived in 1944 and designed and built-in 1945.

The X-1, piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-planes, a series of experimental planes for testing of new technologies and often kept secret.

This X-1-1, Air Force Serial Number 46-062, was flown to Washington, D.C., beneath a B-29 and presented to what was then the American National Air Museum in 1950.

Its color is “International Orange,” a color used in the aerospace industry to set objects apart from their surroundings, similar to safety orange, but deeper and with a more reddish tone.

Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis

Title: Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis
Date: 1945
Crew: One
Length: 30 ft 11 in (9.4 m)
Wingspan: 28 ft (8.5 m)
Height: 10 ft (3.3 m)
Loaded weight: 12,225 lb (5,545 kg)
Powerplant: one × Reaction Motors XLR-11-RM3 liquid-propellant rocket,
Max speed: 957 mph (Mach 1.26) (1,541 km/h)
Range: Five minutes (powered endurance)
Museum: National Air and Space Museum

Chuck Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier — X-1 — 1947

Tour of the National Air and Space Museum

The Spirit of St. Louis
Apollo 11 Command Module
The Wright Flyer
Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis
SpaceShipOne
Apollo Lunar Module
Skylab 4 Apollo Command Module
Airbus A320 Simulated Cockpit

A Tour of Air and Space Museums

National Air and Space Museum
Intrepid, Sea, Air & Space Museum
Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
Royal Air Force Museum London
Australian Aviation Heritage Centre

The Bell X-1 (XS-1) “Sound Barrier” October 14, 1947

Science and Technology Museums

Science Museum, London
Queensland Museum & Science Centre
National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo
ArtScience Museum, Singapore
Shanghai Science and Technology Museum
Great Lakes Science Center, Cleveland
Intrepid, Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York
National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC
National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo
Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago)
Science and Technology Museums
Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Plane Was Designed like a Giant Bullet to Break Sound Barrier: X-1 Bell History

Military and War Museums and Memorials

Imperial War Museum, London
Intrepid, Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York
Australian War Memorial
Darwin Military Museum, Australia
Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, Australia
Changi Museum, Singapore
War Museum of Thessaloniki, Greece
Churchill War Rooms, London
Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, New Zealand
Household Cavalry Museum, London
National Army Museum, London
MacArthur Museum Brisbane

Bell X-1 Ground Launch, January 1949

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“Isn’t it astonishing that all these secrets have been preserved for so many years,
just so we could discover them!”
-Orville Wright

~~~

Photo Credit: 1)By Joyofmuseums (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 2) Ad Meskens [Attribution, CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

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