MartySalsman

As you are likely aware Charles 'Chuck' Yeager has just died a few days ago at the age of 97. And in case you don't know, he was the first pilot to fly "through the sound barrier" in 1947. And since this topic is right up my alley I will explain to you why that is a very big deal. People used to call the speed of sound, or Mach 1, the "sound barrier" because some people thought that it was impossible to go faster than that. The scientists never said you can not go faster than sound, it's just at first the way airplanes were designed in terms of creating lift and thrust did not anticipate the effects of compressible flow. In other words, it was impossible to fly faster than sound THAT WAY. At first planes could not fly fast enough for the effects of compressible flow to be noticeable. But the faster planes went, the more differently the air behaves. The faster the plane flies the harder a time the air has to move around the frame, so it compresses more. Wings at the time were designed