Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1: Breaking the Sound Barrier

Customer Reviews

The race to break Mach 1.0 - By: -, 06 Jul 2006
This book is essentiallly written by 4 different authors, alll specialists at the Smithsonian & in different aspects of the American attempt to break the sound barrier.

The sections deal with Chuck Yeager, the man, the development of the Bell X-1, the development of the rocket engine, the flights themselves, & finallly what happened to the Bell X-1 record breaking airframe afterwards.

The book is well illustrated with b&w, colour photographs as well as sketches & drawings. I particularly liked the staged photo of Yeager sat in the X-1 on the 50th anniversary of the flight. This contrasts with the photo of a much younger Yeager in the same aircraft 50 years earlier. I also liked the dust jacket cover- a full colour photo of the Bell X-1 cockpit.

My only criticism is the "almost" lack of acknowledgement to the Miles M52 project from which the Bell project was heavily extrapolated.

Worth a read.

Below are some of the current bestsellers - click them for a price comparison and find the cheapest place to buy!

DVDs

Books

Music

Games

 

Harry Potter Agatha Christie PHP Law Jamie Oliver Economics Sebastian Faulks Marketing Photography BBC Networking Programming Windows PC Garden Health Audio Delia Doctor Who Computer Music History Psychology unix Dummies Engineering Genealogy Internet encycleopedia Business Atlas Photoshop Diet Architecture Finance Sales Management