Lt. Jack Ridley, Muroc AFB, California, October 14, 1947

Crack!

Col. Albert Boyd, head of the Flight Test Division, jumped at the sudden loud boom. “What the hell was that?” he asked no one in particular. The men surrounding the small radio sitting on Boyd’s Jeep murmured anxiously. Dust from Rogers Dry Lake blew lightly around them.

“God damn, that’s it, isn’t it?” said Lt. Bob Hoover, the backup pilot for the X-1 program. Another man muttered, “He’s bought the farm.” Jack’s heart sank. As chief engineer, one of his jobs was to ensure the safety of the test aircraft and the pilot operating it. Today, he had let his friend and fellow pilot Captain Chuck Yeager get into the aircraft with an undisclosed injury, and he even fashioned a makeshift handle for Yeager to close the hatch without jostling his broken ribs. He dreaded what that sound could have been. Did the hatch come off? Did Chuck pass out? Jack brought his hand to his mouth, silently praying.

Suddenly Captain Yeager’s voice crackled through the radio, “Ridley!” Everyone huddled in closer to here what was going on as Chuck radioed the B-29 that had carried his aircraft. “Make another note. There's something wrong with this Machmeter. It's gone screwy!”

Cheers erupted from the small crowd. They’d done it. They’d broken the sound barrier.

On October 14, 1947, Captain Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier. Maxing out at Mach 1.05, Cpt. Yeager made history at 45,000 ft over the Mojave Desert. His plane, the rocket-powered Bell X-1, marked the first of the famed “X-Planes,” experimental aircraft tested by NACA and the USAF. However, it would be months before the public, or the world at large, heard about Cpt. Yeager’s accomplishment. Secrecy shrouded all stages of mid-century American aeronautics testing, as the military arms race between the Soviet Union and the West continued to ramp to dangerous levels. With any luck, however, the lessons learned at Muroc AFB would go on to be applied in further scientific pursuits.