[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15845-15846]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          HONORING THE MEN AND WOMEN OF EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Knight) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KNIGHT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I, along with my good friend, 
Marcy Kaptur, reestablished the NASA Caucus.
  Last week, I spoke about the 50th anniversary of my father's absolute 
airspeed record flight that happened on October 3, 1967. Two weeks ago 
was the 70th anniversary of the Air Force. On Saturday, we welcome the 
anniversary of supersonic flight.
  For years, there was a thought that there was a barrier present to 
stop aircraft or inhibit flight controls. Many believed attempting to 
pass through this barrier would be fatal.
  Well, on October 14, 1947, Captain Charles E. ``Chuck'' Yeager was 
dropped from a B-29 at about 45,000 feet and quickly accelerated 
through that invisible barrier we know as the speed of sound.
  The first man to achieve Mach 1, we know that as something simple 
today,

[[Page 15846]]

but for the last 70 years, it was because of one man that we get to do 
this.
  General Yeager retired in 1975 as a brigadier general, after 34 years 
of flying, for the Army Air Corps and for the United States Air Force. 
What he achieved that day was something that many men didn't think 
would happen.
  There were about two or three pilots at Muroc or the Army air field 
out at southern California that were trying to do it, but absolutely 
there was only one that did it. Captain Yeager, flying the Bell X-1, 
that he renamed Glamorous Glennis after his wife, was the man who 
achieved that.
  I am proud to represent the men and women of Edwards Air Force Base 
with my good friend, Leader Kevin McCarthy. And I understand what they 
do on a daily basis from the F-35, to the F-22, to all of the aircraft 
that happen out there at Edwards, to all of the flying expertise that 
they have on a daily basis. I am very proud of them. I am proud of what 
Edwards Air Force Base means to the country, and I am proud of what 
they mean to the history of this Nation. But I am most proud of the men 
and women because on a daily basis they create history. For that, I am 
most proud.

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