Take a Closer Look at the Bell X-1
Jun 18, 2015
By Jenny Arena
On October 14, 1947, Capt. Charles 'Chuck' Yeager across the pristine skies of the Mojave Desert in the Bell X-1 at a record-breaking speed. Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than sound.
How many of these facts about the plane and the historic flight did you know?
1. To conserve fuel, the X-1 was flown up to 25,000 ft (7,620 meters) attached to the bomb bay of a modified Boeing B-29 bomber and then dropped.
2. Yeager named the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis after his first wife.
3. The aircraft's iconic orange paint scheme made it easier to spot during flight tests. Some time after the record-breaking, 1.06 Mach-speed flight the aircraft was re-painted with accents of white. The Museum eventually restored the aircraft to its original 1947 paint scheme.
4. Glamorous Glennis used a 6,000-pound-thrust, liquid-propellant rocket engine, known as Black Betsy, from Reaction Motors, Inc.
5. Before the scheduled flight, Yeager broke two ribs. Afraid of being removed from the mission he told only his wife and fellow project pilot Jack Ridley. With two broken ribs, Yeager was unable to seal the hatch of the X-1 by himself. The end of a broom handle used as a lever made it possible for Yeager to seal the hatch on the day of the flight.
Now, we can all get as close to the Bell X-1 as Yeager himself with the recently released 3D model of the exterior of the aircraft.
To capture the Bell X-1, Vincent Rossi, a 3D digitization program officer with the Smithsonian explained, "We used laser scanners for geometry capture and photogrammetry to capture the color information of the Bell X-1. With photogrammetry we are able to turn our digital cameras into 3D scanners using post processing software." The laser scanners capture over 1 million data points per second. The data collected on the Bell X-1 is accurate to about one millimeter.
Certain materials on the Bell X-1 did not scan well and presented challenges for the scanning team: the glass windshield and the painted blue areas around the stars on the wings. Glass does not scan well because the laser mostly passes right through it. "Luckily, we were able to get enough points on the glass surface to accurately reconstruct the windshield using CAD (Computer Aided Design) software," Rossi explained.
The blue graphic areas around the stars did not scan well because the dark colors absorbed the laser light. "Because the laser did not get a good return measurement on these dark areas, we had to manually touch up and edit these sections," Rossi clarified.
This blog was originally published in 2015 under the title "Bell X-1 in 3D." It was updated in 2025. You can read the original version via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
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Support the Museum
We rely on the generous support of donors, sponsors, members, and other benefactors to share the history and impact of aviation and spaceflight, educate the public, and inspire future generations. With your help, we can continue to preserve and safeguard the world’s most comprehensive collection of artifacts representing the great achievements of flight and space exploration.