First Through The "Sound Barrier"!?!?

[Ztex]

I'm with Jack....Welch was the man....

[Bill Greenwood]

Good sources show George Welch as first before Yeager. They proved soon after, no if and or secrecy, the same F-86 went Mach plus. Yeager would be first in level flight. We don't know much about the Nazis. The Me262 was not over Mach 1 capable, and the 163 would have been a glider in the dive, the engine only ran brielfly to get to attack altitude.

[Tim Savage]

Read 'Aces Wild: The Race for Mach 1', by Al Blackburn Published by Scholarly Resources, 1999. After reading it you will be convinced that Welch did it first.

As an aside, when I spoke to him when the book came out he mentioned that Yeager wasn't too popular with the engineers and staff at Edwards at the time either.

[6trn4brn]

One word: Yeager?

One emoticon:

[bipe215]

http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Welch2.html

[daveymac82c]

Wow,

Cool topic. I never knew about any of this. Again WIX comes through to enlighten me on some interesting stuff.

As a side note on super-sonic flight. It's been passed around at my museum that the CF-100 Canuck was "unofficially" the first production airplane to break the sound barrier (in a dive), but after hearing of Welch, I'm getting the feeling it is just a fun (untrue) story to tell the kids.

Can anyone verify if a CF-100 ever broke the sound barrier?

Cheers,

David

[bipe215]

"The CF-100 is not considered to be truly supersonic as it could not exceed the speed of sound in level flight. However, on 18 December 1952, S/L Janusz ¯urakowski, the Avro company chief development test pilot, broke the sound barrier flying the CF-100 Mk 4 prototype in a dive from 30,000 feet"

from wiki

[daveymac82c]

ah, so that's what it was. Cool. I instructor on gliders one summer with Zurakowski's grand-daughter (my little claim to fame).

Yeah, I Figured the CF-100 couldn't do it in level flight. Then again, it's surprising it ever did when you comare it to an F-86. It was a really bulky airplane..

Anyways, enough about CF planes, we were talking about USAF stuff. Again, it's interesting about Welch. Hats of to him, to Yeager, and to all those who lost their lives trying to make history.

Cheers,

David

[Paul Krumrei]

George Welch did it and the AF knew it and ordered that it be kept quiet.
Welch deserved all the WWII fame and post war fame he never got.
He was a true american hero and the right stuff should have been about him.
He bested Yeager with kills, missions flown, combat time, awards and the mach record!!

Jack is correct.

[Hedrick]

I know Colonel Cass Hough's wife (who is also a pilot) and I own his Breitling Navitimer that was giving to him for breaking the sound barrier. He did it several years before Welch and before Yeager's controlled and monitored flight at Muroc (Edwards AFB). Hough did it in a highly modified Lightning P-38 experimental over an air base in England - witnessed and documented. It was even written up in an article in Reader's Digest (dated before Yeager's flight) of which I have a copy. This is a well documented event.

[mike furline]

I know Colonel Cass Hough's wife (who is also a pilot) and I own his Breitling Navitimer that was giving to him for breaking the sound barrier. He did it several years before Welch and before Yeager's controlled and monitored flight at Muroc (Edwards AFB). Hough did it in a highly modified Lightning P-38 experimental over an air base in England - witnessed and documented. It was even written up in an article in Reader's Digest (dated before Yeager's flight) of which I have a copy. This is a well documented event.

Where to begin........???

P-38's are incapable of reaching Mach 1 (the fairly thick wing on the P-38 Lightning has a Critical Mach number of about .69. The aircraft could occasionally reach this speed in dives, leading to a number of crashes.) and the Navitimer wasn't released until 1952-54.

[the330thbg]

I know Colonel Cass Hough's wife (who is also a pilot) and I own his Breitling Navitimer that was giving to him for breaking the sound barrier. He did it several years before Welch and before Yeager's controlled and monitored flight at Muroc (Edwards AFB). Hough did it in a highly modified Lightning P-38 experimental over an air base in England - witnessed and documented. It was even written up in an article in Reader's Digest (dated before Yeager's flight) of which I have a copy. This is a well documented event.

[Ploesti]

I know Colonel Cass Hough's wife (who is also a pilot) and I own his Breitling Navitimer that was giving to him for breaking the sound barrier. He did it several years before Welch and before Yeager's controlled and monitored flight at Muroc (Edwards AFB). Hough did it in a highly modified Lightning P-38 experimental over an air base in England - witnessed and documented. It was even written up in an article in Reader's Digest (dated before Yeager's flight) of which I have a copy. This is a well documented event.

I've never heard of this event happening but would love to see any proven documentation or Reader's Digest article you may have. I won't say it didn't happen but I find myself scratching my head at the thought of a P-38, highly modified or not, breaking the sound barrier. Usually I would stay clear of this debate, albiet a worn out and old debate, but now we seem to have at least three guys claiming to be the first to break the barrier as opposed to the usual two (Welsh and Yeager)

[The Inspector]

I'm firmly in the Welch camp, seeing how far unlimited have been 'massaged' to get to the speeds they run today with hand built, 'stick of dynamite' overboosted engines, clearcoated and micromeshed decals, etc. I've never believed a pretty much bone stock WW2 era P-38 could go supersonic unless the wings came off.
It took some serious perseverance to finish reading CY's self inflating, tub thumper 'Auto biography' several years ago, conclusion? what an a$$hole.

[Mike Halbrook]

I have read the Readers Digest article about the P-38. You will find several accounts from the wartime era of speeds of about 800 mph in dives. These were later determined to be due to instrumentation errors as the aircraft approached compressibility. The best documented wartime high speed flight is probably Marty Martingale's dive in the Spitfire MK XI to Mach .89 and 606 mph true airspeed. This spun the prop off the front of the engine, he was able to glide the 40 miles back to base and make a successful wheels down landing. This was a deliberate high speed flight with recording instrumentation, part of a series of such flights. Alfred Price's book "The Spitfire Story" has a picture of the aircraft at base with the prop and spinner completely missing.