"We were interested in breaking the sound barrier, not setting an FIA record," Needham says. Breaking the sound barrier by air, by land, and in free fall. Enter Chuck Yeager. 1947: Capt. Breaking The Sound Barrier in A Land Vehicle. It's against the law. On Oct. 14, 1947, Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier — or so history tells us. During the '60s a number of hot rodders; Mickey Thompson, the Summers Bros, Dr. Nathan Ostich, Walt and Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove, pushed the land speed envelope from just under 400 mph (John Cobb's 394, which he set in 1947) to over 600 mph. Within the United States, it is illegal to break the sound barrier. The higher the altitude, the faster you can go (less friction) and the lower the speed needed to cross the sound barrier. Rather than paying Bell and Goodlin—who wanted $150,000 to break the sound barrier—in April 1947 the Army decided to use one of its own pilots. The only way to achieve the speed necessary to break the sound barrier, or any other land speed record in this classification, is through the use of thrust powered vehicles. None of these conditions were met. XCAR finds out what goes into building a land speed record breaking car and what obstacles stand in the way of this technological feat. The resultant sonic boom shook a school and caused sprinkler covers to fall off in the nearby town of Gerlach. Driving the ThrustSSC car at Nevada's Black Rock Desert, he set a land speed record of 763.035 mph (average) down a … Bloodhound SSC: Breaking the Sound Barrier and on to 1000 Mph. Chuck Yeager was a decorated combat pilot and celebrated test pilot with the right stuff to break the sound barrier. On January 12, 1948, a Northrop unmanned rocket sled became the first land vehicle to break the sound barrier.At a military test facility at Muroc Air Force Base (now Edwards AFB), California, it reached a peak speed … In 1997, 50 years after Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier in an aircraft, Green did it on the ground! In 1997, Andy Green became the first person to break the sound barrier in a land vehicle. ... break the sound barrier or the 2020-slated Sabre, ... and called it out as a major disturbance to land … Needham doesn't let these "details" bother him. The British team behind Bloodhound SSC, a project that might see a car travel faster than 1000mph. In 1997, Andy Green became the first person to break the sound barrier in a land vehicle. This jet-powered car called Bloodhound aims to break the sound barrier and then break the land speed record.