Second Pilot To Bust The Sound Barrier

Jamie Beckett

Monday, August 22, 2022 at 10:54 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

While Chuck Yeager is widely credited as the first to break the sound barrier, the article introduces James Thomas Fitzgerald Jr. as the second person to achieve supersonic flight.
Fitzgerald also accomplished this feat in the X-1 aircraft, similar to Yeager's well-known flights.
Despite his groundbreaking achievement, Fitzgerald remains largely unknown and later died in a T-33 jet trainer landing accident.

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If you believe the official tale that Chuck Yeager was the first to break the speed of sound, which is very likely but not certain, then who came next? Yeager did. Again and again and again. The second person to achieve supersonic flight was James Thomas Fitzgerald Jr., who was also flying the X-1. You’ve likely never heard of him. Fitzgerald was killed in a landing accident of a T-33, a relatively tame jet trainer.