00:00About 35,000 feet over California's Mojave Desert,
00:04the XB-1 became the first privately funded airplane
00:07to break the sound barrier during a test flight.
00:10There we are. XB-1 is supersonic,
00:12faster than the speed of sound.
00:14The first civil aircraft independently
00:17constructed that has ever flown supersonic.
00:20In 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first human to break
00:24the sound barrier when he pushed the Bell X-1 past
00:26Mach 1 during a flight over the same Mojave Desert.
00:31Since then, supersonic speeds have been routine amongst
00:35military aircraft but was only
00:37commercially available thanks to Concorde,
00:39the jet developed through joint public funding
00:41by the UK and France.
00:44Concorde was retired in 2003.
00:48Now, more than 20 years later,
00:50is it time for another supersonic boom?
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