Engineering Theory in the Making: Aerodynamic Calculation 'Breaks the Sound Barrier'

摘要

On 14 October 1947, Air Force Captain Charles E. Yeager, at the controls of the Bell XS-1 experimental aircraft, became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Aerodynamic design of this straight-wing monoplane was based on wind-tunnel tests of a model plus empirical knowledge, still embryonic, of airflow near sonic speed. Engineering theory, by contrast, took another five to six years to "break the sound barrier" by calculations for even a simple aerodynamic shape. The theoretical problem thus had its initial solution after the practical one, a common situation in engineering. The story of the XS-1 has been told many times. This is the story of the theoretical breakthrough.