Posted for Michael Smith <mdpilot982@gmail.com> (by way of Jeffrey Liegner, MD):


Listers,

I didn't think the FAA allowed such high speeds in air shows.

I ran this scenario by my brother who has a post doc designing hypersonic
ballistic control systems for armaments for the US government agencies that
bomb other persons who have demonstrated a dislike for the US by bombing us
first.

His comments are:

Well.... not really "shock wave"... If you notice, there is no optical
distortion or aberration at the tip of the nose cone, and no aberrations are
seen if you carry the inspection aft from the leading edge, which suggests
that the plane is firmly subsonic, not even transonic, as even at Mach 0.7 or
0.8 I would expect to see some conical expansion fan distortion. The water
disturbance below the craft is most likely secondary to the displacement
boundary layer (again, incompressible arguments apply here).

I hope this helps.

Michael Smith