Are there any variations or notable sensations when you break the sound barrier in a plane?
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Yes, around Mach 0.3 you must start taking compressibility effects into account to make accurate calculations and for your instrumentation to give you correct information such as airspeed.
As you approach Mach 1(local speed of sound), even though your airspeed is less than the speed of sound, the flow around your wing may accelerate to the speed of sound. Where the flow is Mach 1 a Shockwave will form and the airspeed after the Shockwave will be significantly slower and the air pressure higher leading to major instability issues. So wings must use supercritical airfoils. Drag calculations must also account for wave drag
If you’re airplane is intended to travel faster than the speed of sound, leading edges start to get pointy and thin. Their is a huge change in the airflow following that must be accounted for.
This field of study begins with a course in Gas Dynamics.
Yes, around Mach 0.3 you must start taking compressibility effects into account to make accurate calculations and for your instrumentation to give you correct information such as airspeed.
As you approach Mach 1(local speed of sound), even though your airspeed is less than the speed of sound, the flow around your wing may accelerate to the speed of sound. Where the flow is Mach 1 a Shockwave will form and the airspeed after the Shockwave will be significantly slower and the air pressure higher leading to major instability issues. So wings must use supercritical airfoils. Drag calculations must also account for wave drag
If you’re airplane is intended to travel faster than the speed of sound, leading edges start to get pointy and thin. Their is a huge change in the airflow following that must be accounted for.
This field of study begins with a course in Gas Dynamics.
I’ve flown on the Concorde before. Takeoff was really loud, but you don’t hear or feel anything when you break the sound barrier. There was a display in the cabin showing the Mach speed.
I’ve flown on the Concorde before. Takeoff was really loud, but you don’t hear or feel anything when you break the sound barrier. There was a display in the cabin showing the Mach speed.
I’ve flown on the Concorde before. Takeoff was really loud, but you don’t hear or feel anything when you break the sound barrier. There was a display in the cabin showing the Mach speed.
There’s a *very* big difference in how aerodynamics work going faster than the speed of sound compared to slower, and it’s a fairly sudden difference from like mach 0.9 to 1.1. The tricky part is, when air moves over the wings and other parts of an airplane, it speeds up over certain patches, potentially enough to get it from subsonic to supersonic. How much it speeds up and how big the patches are is one of the things that’s different from subsonic to supersonic. So if an airplane is going very close to the speed of sound, it’s complicated to figure out which rules govern how the air will behave. It’s actually easier math to figure out how an airplane will behave fully above the speed of sound, say mach 1.5, than right near the speed of sound (transonic).
There’s a *very* big difference in how aerodynamics work going faster than the speed of sound compared to slower, and it’s a fairly sudden difference from like mach 0.9 to 1.1. The tricky part is, when air moves over the wings and other parts of an airplane, it speeds up over certain patches, potentially enough to get it from subsonic to supersonic. How much it speeds up and how big the patches are is one of the things that’s different from subsonic to supersonic. So if an airplane is going very close to the speed of sound, it’s complicated to figure out which rules govern how the air will behave. It’s actually easier math to figure out how an airplane will behave fully above the speed of sound, say mach 1.5, than right near the speed of sound (transonic).
There’s a *very* big difference in how aerodynamics work going faster than the speed of sound compared to slower, and it’s a fairly sudden difference from like mach 0.9 to 1.1. The tricky part is, when air moves over the wings and other parts of an airplane, it speeds up over certain patches, potentially enough to get it from subsonic to supersonic. How much it speeds up and how big the patches are is one of the things that’s different from subsonic to supersonic. So if an airplane is going very close to the speed of sound, it’s complicated to figure out which rules govern how the air will behave. It’s actually easier math to figure out how an airplane will behave fully above the speed of sound, say mach 1.5, than right near the speed of sound (transonic).
When you cross the supersonic barrier, aerodynamics change significantly, the way the air passes over the aircraft and how they interact is much different than below supersonic speeds.
[This video](https://youtu.be/M5UEZMa_p9A) is not about supersonic flight specifically but dives in a lot of the core issues involved with supersonic flight. Vortices can form that are strong enough to move control surfaces as well as generate turbulence strong enough to brak an aircraft apart, if it’s not designed for supersonic flight. However in the cockpit of a supersonic aircraft there’s no noticeable difference in the cockpit. The Sonic boom someone on the ground hears trails behind the aircraft so to the pilot it’s more or less the same.
I don’t know about what it feels like on the inside, but the drag the plane experiences does change. Drag is usually proportional to velocity at low speeds, proportional to velocity^2 at high speeds, becomes exponential near the sound barrier, and then drops off after you’ve broken it.
It also becomes much harder to dissipate heat when you’ve broken the sound barrier because you actually have less of your surface area contacting the air and you actually create a small vacuum bubble behind you
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