Two days ago, I received an e-mail that really surprised me. A nonflying, highly-respected friend, Dean Masters, sent it out of the clear blue sky. It was a story saying that Chuck Yeager was not the first to break the sound barrier.
The story goes that George "Wheaties" Whelch, a WW II ace, was a leading test pilot given the job of test flying North American's XP-86 prototype at Muroc Field (later renamed Edwards AFB).
Wheaties became convinced that the XP-86 could break the sound barrier in a dive. The word was out from the USAF not to do this because they didn't want to divert any thunder from Chuck Yeager, who was planning to do that in level flight in the Bell SX-1.
Wheaties, not one to cater to the brass, announced to the crowd at Pancho Barnes' famous watering hole that he was going to let them hear a sonic boom, and he did.
Now that's the story. Even though it cited great aviation resources, I was still a little less than totally convinced.
One of the greatest sources of aviation history is AVSIG, the great aviation online forum. I put the story to them, and got back responses from some of the best aviation historians I know.
Folks, the story is almost certainly true. On the other hand, it was not official because Wheaties' flight did not have instrumentation to document a supersonic flight. Besides, Wheaties did it in a dive, not in level flight as Yeager did in his official flight.
And now you know the rest of the story.
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