A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of Jacqueline Cochran to my Facebook page, along with a note explaining that she was the first woman to break the sound barrier when she flew an F-86 Sabre past the Mach in 1953. A friend posted this comment:
You should add "in level flight". Lots of WWII fighter pilots broke the sound barrier in combat dives, many died because they did not understand why their controls suddenly became useless.I responded with this:
There's a certain amount of mythology about WWII-era prop fighters exceeding the speed of sound in dives. Not known to have ever happened. The control problems some pilots reported happened in transonic flight as shock waves built up around the airplane and the elevators lost authority (which is why supersonic aircraft have all-moving horizontal stabilizers today). The F-86 Cochrane flew was a hopped up Canadian built version with a big engine, and in fact she had to dive to hit the Mach ... the F-86 couldn't go supersonic in level flight. Additional info here.
Clik here to view.
Jacqueline Cochran w/Chuck Yeager (USAF Flight Test Center photo)
