Thanks for the reply which I found quite interesting. Obviously, I am just reading books including several by Eric Brown. About the X-1, he does say that when it ' ran into compressibility problems in 1947, it was rescued by the fitment of the 'flying tail' ". Of course, I am just taking things at face value.
Your statements about the validity of his claims are the first I have heard. Is there some sort of documented controversy about whether his statement is correct. And if not correct, is it just due to an honest misinterpretation.
Did the Bell X-1 have a trimmable stab(like a 737) prior to the meeting with Miles(versus a fixed horizontal stab).
A little off topic but interesting nonetheless.