![]() That Tuesday morning, Yeager, inside the Glamorous Glennis, was dropped from the bomb-bay of a Boeing B29 Superfortress at 20,000ft, and took the X-1 to 42,000ft. ![]() Ridley sawed 10 inches off a broomstick and wedged it in the lock, so that Yeager would be able to operate it with his left hand. Yeager told the project engineer Jack Ridley about the injury, which, crucially, prevented him from using his right hand to secure the X-1 hatch. The British test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland had died 13 months earlier, when, close to the sound barrier, his DH108 jet disintegrated over the Thames. This was the sound barrier, which no aviator had crossed and lived to tell the tale. ![]() 97, just below Mach 1, the speed of sound. Two days later, Yeager was scheduled to fly the rocket-powered, orange-painted Bell X-1 plane nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis”, to Mach. ![]()
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