The international race for supersonic flight was won by the Americans in 1947. However, Britain should have beaten them to it.
This Secret History programme shows newly discovered film of the top-secret M52, a British test plane that would have been capable of 1,000 mph, had its developers been allowed to continue their research – the powers that be terminated the project. Designers, engineers and survivors of an elite group of pilots who risked life and limb in testing the prototype tell their story. They also comment on what they saw as an act of betrayal by the authorities who blew their dream of supersonic flight out of the sky. Breaking The Sound Barrier tries to explain why the British supersonic project was abandoned.
