Makes me proud to be an Englishman
We sure showed those Yanks when we broke the sound barrier! Pure British pluck! Spiffing. Top hole.
Just like we were the first to land a chap on the moon. What wizard fellows!
LOL
shareIn all fairness very few people knew that Yeager had broken the Sound barrier.
shareWhether they knew the name Yeager or not, most people knew it was the Americans who had broken the sound barrier. The film's story was demonstrably and knowingly false. Good cinema but junk history (and not much better technologically, at least according to Chuck Yeager, who should know).
shareI'm afraid the British were WAY ahead of the US in Jet Engine and Rocket engine design at the end of the 40's and throughout the whole of the 50's.
Russia's air superiority during the Korean war was exclusively down to the fact their fighters had Rolls Royce jet engines and when NASA were struggling to keep up with the Russians in the 50's space race it was Rolls Royce again who redesigned NASA's rockets to make them work better, but this information was not released at the time.
Yes, the British were ahead of the US in jet technology in the 40s (and the Germans had been ahead of them and everybody else in the early-mid 40s). I didn't say anything about that. What I said was that it was an American who broke the sound barrier, on October 14, 1947, and that is incontrovertibly true.
The British weren't ahead of the US in jet technology through the whole of the 1950s. The massive setback with the Comet and lsubsequent funding and other problems gradually allowed the US to assume the lead in jet technology. Even in rocketry, despite all the Soviet "firsts", the US had superior technology from the beginning, a lead which gradually grew over the following decade.
This isn't to say that other countries didn't take the lead in some developments or aircraft designs. Obviously, no one nation ever achieved all the breakthroughs or technological developments. But overall the US has been the world's aerospace leader since or soon after the end of the Second World War.
When I used the word Jet I was referring to engines and not planes. Although I think it's fair to say that when one considers the UK was Bankrupt after the second world war that to be the leading civilian aviation nation on the planet was extraordinary. You're right that the Comet accidents seriously harmed the industry in the UK.
As for Chuck Yeagar, I never said he wasn't the 1st to break the sound barrier I was referring to the reference of Control Reversal which many have pointed out was stupid when in fact it was a well known phenomenon that could produce problems.
For me the film is a little like U571 which makes no reference to the British and the Enigma machine, why should it as it's an American film primarily made for American consumption and the same can be said for the Sound Barrier in relation to the UK.