On this historic date in aviation history, I thought an interesting retrospective would be in order...
Absolutely MASSIVE leaps and bounds were taking place in aviation in a very short span during the 1930's and 1940's.
For example:
The Golden Age
On January 19, 1937, a year and a half after setting the land plane speed record in the H-1 Racer, eccentric millionaire and aviation enthusiast Howard Hughes broke his own transcontinental speed record by flying non-stop from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, smashing the previous time of 9 hours, 27 minutes by two hours. His average speed over the flight was 322 miles per hour...
The Demon in the Sky
Then, a little over a decade later on 14 October 1947, over the Mojave Desert in California (less than a month after the U.S. Air Force had been created as a separate service), Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager piloted an experimental Bell X-1 aircraft, tail number #46-062 and nicknamed
Glamorous Glennis for his wife, and reached Mach 1.06 (700 miles per hour), thus defeating the notorious demon in the sky...
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