How can you tell that an airplane is flying faster than at the speed of sound?
In: 1
From inside, unless you can see shockwave vapor through a canopy or window, you can’t. Transsonic and supersonic aircraft are equipped with mach indicators which show airspeed as a percentage of the speed of sound.
From outside, as the aircraft aproaches the first thing you hear will be the shockwave, followed by the rest of the noise it makes. No shockwave means it was transonic or subsonic.
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