Bell X-1
1946 experimental aircraft model by Bell
The Bell X-1 (Bell Model 44) is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated originally as the XS-1, and was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics–U.S. Army Air Forces–U.S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it achieved a speed of nearly 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km/h; 870 kn) in 1948. A derivative of this same design, the Bell X-1A, having greater fuel capacity and hence longer rocket burning time, exceeded 1,600 miles per hour (2,600 km/h; 1,400 kn) in 1954. The X-1 aircraft #46-062, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis and flown by Chuck Yeager, was the first piloted airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-planes, a series of American experimental rocket planes (and non-rocket planes) designed for testing new technologies.
Design and development
Parallel development
In 1942, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Aviation began a top secret project with Miles Aircraft to develop the world's first aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier. The project resulted in the design of the turbojet-powered Miles M.52, with a maximum speed of 1,000 miles per hour (870 kn; 1,600 km/h) (almost twice the existing airspeed record) in level flight, and able to climb to an altitude of 36,000 ft (11,000 m) in 1 minute and 30 seconds. The fuselage was shaped like a bullet, it had thin wings and a slab tailplane for controlled flight at the speed of sound and beyond. Miles' chief aerodynamicist, Dennis Bancroft, was interviewed many years later in 1997 on his reason for needing an all-moving tailplane in his 1944 design.
DENNIS BANCROFT: We thought the ordinary controls wouldn't work above the speed of sound. So, we had to make an all-moving tail plane, because an ordinary elevator would literally not function at all.
“Bell X-1” enters the record as 1946 experimental aircraft model by Bell. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bell, experimental and aircraft can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q223365. The Library of Congress control number is sh85013028. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1945, 1948 and 1954.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bell X-1” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.