News

December 2014

Shelf Unbound Award
January 2013

"Chuck Yeager Goes Supersonic" becomes available on Amazon.com.
March 2013

"Chuck Yeager Goes Supersonic" becomes available in bookstores.
April 2013

Kirkus Reviews: "engages young readers' imaginations, respects their intelligence and takes them along on an exciting, real-life adventure."

Clarion Reviews: "beautiful and vivid"

Welcome!

    On October 14, 1947, Captain Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force flew the specially built X-1 rocket plane through the sound barrier and brought the world of aviation into a new era. Previous to that time, many airplanes had approached the speed of sound only to be horribly shaken by mysterious forces and sometimes even destroyed. Captain Yeager undertook a series of flights into the unknown as he flew faster and faster until the seeming miracle of supersonic speed was achieved. With the knowledge that engineers gathered from the Yeager and later test flights, they were able to build a whole new generation of military fighters and other aircraft that could fly at speeds well above the speed of sound.
    We have written a book, "Chuck Yeager Goes Supersonic," that describes the life of Captain Yeager growing up, entering the military and becoming a pilot, transitioning to become a test pilot, and finally being chosen to fly the very dangerous X-1 flights at faster and faster speeds. The reader will experience the thrill of these sequential stages which lead to bursting through the powerful pressure wave that is the sound barrier. The book is written for early readers, first grade through the third grade, and aims to introduce a new generation to the incredible story of this great American hero. It can be purchased for $9.72 from Amazon.com, just click here to order.
    We include here several pages of the story. We begin with our opening where we introduce our great hero.

Then the book includes a number of exciting events in Chuck's life as he moves towards becoming a highly experienced test pilot.

Chuck gets his chance to chase down that "enemy" plane in the following pages. Then Chuck goes to Test Pilot School and has both classroom learning and some test flying.

Yes, he ended up making a hard landing in a farmer's back yard. Chuck was eventually asked to fly a rocket plane through the terrifying sound barrier. Many observers believed that he would die in the attempt.

One of the chapters describes the physics of sound and the nature of the sound barrier. A plane or any object that gives off sound sends those sound waves out at the speed of 760 miles per hour. Strange events begin to occur if the plane flies so fast that it is catching up to the sound waves that it emits. The Yeager flights were at high altitude where the speed of sound is slower, about 660 miles per hour. If the plane is flying just under 660 miles per hour, its sound waves are leaving it and barely going forward of the plane since they are flying at 660 miles per hour also. So the waves pile up on top of each other and form one huge pressure wave that can damage the plane if it gets too close.
All of this is shown in the video demonstration that you can observe by going to our "fly" page. Here you get to choose which plane you wish to fly and you can use the arrow keys to control the plane. The right arrow makes it go faster, the left arrow makes it slow down, the up and down arrows cause the plane to climb or descend. You can see the sound waves going out from the plane and, if you fly fast enough, you can begin to catch up with those waves.
If you fly even faster, you can break through the sound barrier. We hope that you have sound on your computer so that you can hear it all as it happens.

If you want to read more about the Yeager story besides what we have written, you might enjoy these.

Pisano, Dominick A., F. Robert van der Linden, and Frank H. Winter, Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1: Breaking the Sound Barrier, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2006.

Yeager, Chuck, and Leo Janos, Yeager, An Autobiography, Bantam Books, Inc. 1985.

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