Bell X-1 Rocket Plane
 

The Bell X-1 Rocket Plane was the first plane to reach supersonic flight in 1947. Captain Chuck Yeagher was the pilot of this plane (also called the "Glamorous Glennis").
Mr. Bob Holder, a former resident of Pequannock, tells us that some of the work done on the X-1 engine was done at Reaction Motors in Pompton Plains (aka: Dunnes Barn). A lot of the people who worked there were from Pequannock Township.
The motors made a lot of noise in 1946. The zoning board passed an ordinance against making too much noise.
The April 1946 issue of LIFE Magazine has a picture of the testing of the X-1 Rocket at the Pompton Plains facility.
Reaction Motors has the most motors of any manufacturer at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.

The plane now hangs at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
Reaction Motors Historian:          Richard Collins
                                                             Diamond Spring Road
                                                             Denville, NJ