Charles « Chuck » YEAGER – 71 years ago !

THE RIGHT STUFF  / L’ETOFFE des HEROS

Supersonic aircraft X-1 in flight
Photo: NASA

Captain Charles « Chuck » YEAGER broke the sound barrier with the help of his friend Jack RIDLEY on a 14th of October 1947 – He did it 71 years ago!

Brigadier General Charles Chuck Yeager next to his X-1 aircraft

(U. S. Air Force illustration/Mike Carabajal)

Supersonic aircraft X-1
Photo: NASA

Supersonic aircraft X-1 pre-flight inspection

Photo: U.S.Air Force Link

XLR-11 ROCKET POWERED AIRCRAFT

Birth of Manned Rocket Research Airplanes: 1946 to 1975

The first reliable, effective rocket engine that would provide boost for experimental research aircraft was produced by four members of the American Rocket Society (ARS) who combined forces to form Reaction Motors Incorporated (RMI) (Rockaway, New Jersey) for developing the Experimental Liquid Rocket (XLR-11) rocket motor. The XLR-11 engine had four separate rocket chambers. Each chamber provided 1500 lb of rated thrust and could be operated independently as a means of throttling thrust in quarters, up to 6000 pounds. The XLR-11 possessed remarkable longevity, powering an impressive fleet of rocket aircraft for more than a quarter of a century (1946 to 1975). This fleet of vehicles were the first rocket aircraft devoted solely to high performance experimental flight research. They were not constrained by military or commercial demands and ranged from being the first to break the sound barrier (XS-1), to the first to reach Mach 2.0 (D-558-II [fig. 5]), to the first to exceed the X-2 Mach 3.2 record (X-15 with two XLR-11 engines).

D-558-II airplane on Rogers lakebed

Figure 5. The D-558-II airplane on Rogers lakebed.

The X-1E – Early Development of Energy Management

Design efforts to extend aircraft performance produced increased wing loadings, W/S, and decreased lift-to-drag ratios, L/D. These design changes were beneficial in reducing drag to achieve supersonic and hypersonic speeds, but were also detrimental in that they reduced the area of the maneuvering footprint and presented difficulties in the approach and landing.

As L/D values decreased, the glide slope angle and the rate of descent increased, making it more difficult for pilots to estimate distances and times required for acceptable landings. The X-1E (fig. 6) was modified with a low-aspect-ratio wing having a thickness-to-chord ratio of four percent – the only aircraft of the X-1/D-558 series to have sufficiently low L/D values to require unique energy management techniques. This X-1E was the first to experiment with approach patterns designed to give
the pilot more time in the traffic pattern to manage energy.

The landing pattern was approached in a conventional manner except that altitudes and speeds were somewhat higher than for
powered aircraft. The initial reference point was established at 12,000 ft (mean sea level) on a downwind heading (180 deg remaining to turn). The downwind leg was offset some four miles from the centerline of the landing runway. On downwind, abeam the touchdown point, landing gear and partial flaps were deployed at a speed of 240 knots. Full flaps were usually deployed on the final approach. At the initial reference point the pilot had almost three minutes until touchdown – additional time for handling increased speeds and sink rates.7,8

X-1 supersonic aircraft on Lakebed

Figure 6. The X-1E airplane on Rogers lakebed.

X-1E supersonic aircraft under B-29 Mothership

Secret declassified USAF pilot Charles Chuck Yeager after breaking the sound barrier on X-1

Report from www.archives.gov

X-1 supersonic aircraft instrument panel

(Text from the NASA at: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/home/index.html)

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RGPD / GDPR – Politique de confidentialité concernant vos données – Privacy policy regarding your data.

Chers abonnés, bonjour. Conformément au réglement de l’Union Européenne n°2016/679 ou Réglement Général sur la Protection des Données, vous pouvez accéder à vos données mais aussi les effacer si vous le souhaitez en remplissant le formulaire RGPD qui est ici: https://airforces.fr/contact/

Dear subscribers, good morning. In accordance with the European Union regulation n°2016/679 or General Data Protection Regulation, you can access your data but also delete them if you wish by filling out the GDPR form which is here: https://airforces.fr/contact/

Un message de confirmation vous sera envoyé par la suite.

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AVIATION ENGLISH IS 10 YEARS TODAY – Dear Readers, Let Me Thank You This Way:

Forces of the air Henri Farman 1908

A special gift to you today as AVIATION ENGLISH or airforces.fr was born on May 13, 2008 as « Prépa PLS Anglais ». You have clicked on its pages around 650,000 times. Thank you! More than 1,000 posts after (I have deleted many to get the blog more interesting), I cannot write as I used to as I had my work cut out, and more particularly, I wrote a book « Une autre histoire de l’aviation » which took three years to complete. Dear readers THANK YOU SO MUCH for visiting this website, for commenting on social media. Therefore, let us celebrate with a gift to you – a page of links that can be useful to you:

AVIATION ENGLISH ou airforces.fr a démarré le 13 mai 2008. Pour ses 10 ans, en cadeau pour vous chers lecteurs:

USEFUL WEBSITES

SITES INTERNET UTILES

AVIATION ENGLISH has plenty of links and posts about interesting videos and bilingual topics, but it is not the only one:

AVIATION ENGLISH regorge de liens et articles sur des sujets bilingues et vidéos intéressantes mais ce n’est pas le seul:

The links below will take you to websites that will immerse you in an English-speaking environment. If you add them to your favourites or bookmarks, you can take full advantage of them.

Les liens ci-dessous vous emmènerons vers des sites internet qui vous feront baigner dans un environnement anglophone. Si vous les ajoutez dans vos favoris ou marque-pages, vous pourrez en profiter pleinement.

For Training Purpose / Pour Apprendre :

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/p/5644.html

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/

https://teacherluke.co.uk/archive-of-episodes-1-149/

https://tunein.com/radio/Better-at-English—Learn-English—EFL-ESL-p397051/?topicId=37707864

https://tunein.com/radio/6-Minute-English-p551301/?topicId=120197771

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Educational/6-Minute-Vocabulary-p814907/

https://tunein.com/radio/6-Minute-Grammar-p878563/

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Education-Podcasts/Daily-Easy-English-Expression-Podcast-p959058/

https://www.anglaisfacile.com/

Talk Radio (Fluent English) / Radio Avec Conversations :

https://tunein.com/radio/NPR-Program-Stream-s49783/

https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-Radio-4-935-s25419/

https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-Radio-4-Extra-s6839/

https://tunein.com/radio/WNYC-FM-939-s21606/

EASY ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS (Radio)

Easy English Expressions (VIDEOS)

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Entertainment/Kathy–Judy-p542244/

https://tunein.com/radio/Cornucopia-Broadcasting-s140798/

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Entertainment–Media/Wait-Wait-Dont-Tell-Me-p46/

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Talk/Just-Plane-Radio-p400291/              (AVIATION)

http://talkradio.co.uk/late-night-alternative-iain-lee

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Investigative-News/60-Minutes-p33074/

https://tunein.com/radio/Monocle-24-s147125/

https://tunein.com/radio/British-Comedy-Radio-GB-s285581/

http://www.radio.net/genre/Talk/

FCL English / Anglais Aéro De La Radiotéléphonie Internationale :

https://fclanglais.fr

https://web.archive.org/web/20220927012734/https://anglais-pour-voler.com/apps/in-english-please-application/

DICTIONARIES / DICTIONAIRES :

Le dictionnaire aéronautique de Pierre Boi, un incontournable.

http://www.wordreference.com/fr/

https://www.dassault-aviation.com/fr/services/lexique-bilingue/

https://anglais-pour-voler.com/librairies/

Il vous reste encore plein d’autres liens à découvrir ici: https://airforces.fr/link-categories/

sphinx ailé

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UNE AUTRE HISTOIRE DE L’AVIATION DISPONIBLE EN EBOOK

Livre une autre histoire de l'aviation chapitre 7 merveilleux fous volants dans leurs drôles de machinesÇa y est! Plus d’un an après la sortie du livre papier Une autre histoire de l’aviation, la version ebook est enfin sortie chez Kindle et elle est aussi téléchargeable sur tablettes et téléphones portables à cette adresse: https://www.amazon.fr/Autre-Histoire-lAviation-lIndre-Loire-ebook/dp/B01MZ1LMXE/ . Non seulement vous pouvez prêter ce livre numérique à un ami pendant 14 jours mais vous pouvez le lire directement si vous avez souscrit à l’abonnement Kindle. Ce livre étonnant, riche en surprises comporte 333 illustrations. Il nécessitait une mise en page retravaillée pour les besoins du numérique, ainsi que des modifications dans une version enrichies. De nombreuses annotations apparaissent en notes de bas de page, une table des matières au début et à la fin du livre permettent d’aller directement aux parties de votre choix et l’index a été supprimé car les liseuses et tablettes permettent de trouver ce que vous cherchez.

Il est en vente à 9,93 € mais il ne vous en coûtera que 2,99 € si vous achetez un livre broché ( 29,96 € avec la nouvelle version revue et enrichie). Un échantillon est consultable ci-dessous, en bas à gauche.

C’est le livre qu’il vous faut si vous souhaitez comprendre en quoi consistait la conquête de l’air depuis l’antiquité jusqu’aux débuts de la guerre aérienne au dessus de Verdun avec le héros tourangeau Maxime Lenoir, le premier double as français mort au combat, le meilleur des aviateurs de Verdun entre juillet et octobre 1916.

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FANTASTIC IMAGES OF A NEW ERA

As I was stumbling upon a fantastic picture shared by Stéphane Querry (follow his blog Survols), look at what the Californians could see up in the sky yesterday, on Friday, December 22, 2017:

Alors que je suis tombé sur une vue fantastique partagée par Stéphane Querry (suivez son blog Survols), regardez ce que les Californiens pouvaient voir dans le ciel. C’était hier, vendredi 22 décembre 2017:

The trails left by SpaceX Falcon 9 launch were so spectacular that the Californian witnesses believed it was a UFO. Beyond these impressive images, a new era has just begun as this lift off has sent 10 telecommunication satellites into space to build up the « orbital real estate » of the Iridium® satellite constellation. Aircraft, ships and land vehicles navigation will never be the same thanks to this network:

Les traînées laissées par le lancement de SpaceX Falcon 9 étaient si spectaculaires que les témoins californiens ont cru qu’il s’agissait d’un OVNI. Au-delà de ces images impressionnantes, c’est une nouvelle ère qui vient de commencer étant donné que ce lancement a envoyé 10 satellites de télécommunication dans l’espace pour construire le « parc orbital » de la constellation Iridium®. La navigation des aéronefs, des bateaux et des véhicules terrestre ne sera plus jamais la même grâce à ce réseau:

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