Delete comment from: Dark Roasted Blend
I sent these photos to my dad, a retired Navy pilot and an aeronautical engineer. He said this:
Mike, Thanks for the great photos. I really enjoyed looking at them.
Their explanation of the ring of condensed moisture surrounding the F-18 is wrong, though. The aircraft in that photo is not going supersonic -- it's already supersonic. The shock wave and the cloud surrounding the aircraft are not momentary phenomena -- they travel along with the aircraft as long as it's supersonic in humid air. The moisture behind the shock wave isn't visible because of rapid cooling of the air. It's caused by reduced pressure behind the shock wave. On USS Enterprise we frequently did air shows for VIP visitors that included a low-altitude supersonic flyby. You could see the ring cloud surrounding and moving along with the aircraft as it approached the ship.
Mar 25, 2012, 1:30:51 PM