Brilliant orange against a clean museum floor, the Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis" — the rocket plane that Captain Chuck broke the sound barrier in on October 14, 1947 — rests on its display stand inside the National Air Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., its serial number 6062 clearly visible on the white tail, its XLR-11 rocket engine cluster gleaming beneath the fuselage. The X-1's bullet-shaped nose, borrowed from a .50-caliber projectile because engineers knew that shape was already proven supersonic, and its razor-thin straight wings made it unlike anything that had flown before. Chuck named the aircraft after his wife Glennis, and on that October morning over the Mojave Desert he became the first human being confirmed to have flown faster than sound — Mach 1.06. This chrome-era postcard, published by the Smithsonian Institution and distributed by Capsco Wholesalers of Washington D.C., is a genuine piece of aviation history memorabilia from the era when the X-1 was newly on public display.