Yeager's first supersonic flight would occur on October 14, 1947, and the Bell X-1-1 was the first aircraft in history capable of reaching supersonic speeds, achieving Mach 1.06, or 700 miles per ...

The X-1 series aircraft were air-launched from a modified Boeing B-29 or a B-50 Superfortress bombers. Lasting from 1946 to 1958, the project’s goal was breaking the sound barrier, which was ...

For over 70 years, the X-planes have represented the cutting edge of American aerospace innovation, experimental aircraft ...

Meet the X-1: When it comes to testing airplanes the “X” designation means experimental. The first X aircraft was built in 1945 by Bell in partnership with the U.S. Army ...

Transonic aircraft reach speeds very near the speed of sound, greater than 250 mph but less than 760 with about a Mach 1. X-1 was designed to explore that space — and ultimately fly beyond it ...

A joint project of NACA and the U.S. Army Air Forces, built by Bell Aircraft of Buffalo, New York, the X-1 reached a speed of 700 miles per hour that bright day, Mach 1.06 at an altitude of 43,000 ...

The X-1 was just the beginning of secret, experimental U.S. aircraft design. The Bell X-2 “Starbuster” soon followed – an airframe designed to research flight characteristics in the Mach 2-3 ...

A Bell Aircraft Corporation X-1 supersonic test plane, circa 1950. An X-1 was the first plane to break the sound barrier in Chuck Yeager’s flight on October 14, 1947.

Everything about the X-59 is designed to create a quiet sonic boom at the test point of Mach 1.4 (1,074 mph) at 55,000ft (16,800m), which is in the range a commercial aircraft is likely to fly.

Among manned, powered aircraft, the North American X-15 still holds records for highest altitude (67 miles) and greatest speed (Mach 6.7) — and that was all the way back in the 1960s.

Meet the X-66A, NASA's Sustainable Flight Demonstrator full-scale single-aisle research plane, featuring transonic truss-braced wings and designed to explore net-zero aviation emissions and more ...