Charles Elwood Chuck" Yeager (born 1923), the American who was the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound. On 14 October 1947, Yeager was released in a Bell X-1 aircraft (seen here) from beneath a B29 bomber at an altitude of 6800 metres over Muroc, California, USA. It was powered by a four-chamber XLR-11 rocket engine that generated 26.5 kilonewtons of thrust. This pushed the aircraft to 1078 kilometres per hour at an altitude of 12,800 metres, equivalent to 1.015 times the speed of sound. Yeager unofficially named the aircraft "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife. It is now a museum exhibit in Washington, USA. Photographed in 1947."