Shock Wave Formation in Transonic Flight

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• published: 19 Oct 2012
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Formation of a shock wave around the engine cowl of a Boeing 767 at high speed. The aircraft itself isn't going supersonic, but it's going fast enough (probably around Mach 0.8) that the local airflow around the engine cowl is supersonic, in a small area. This is called "transonic," and results in the formation of a shock wave at a right angle to the surface of the plane. The air in front of the shock is supersonic, and the air behind it is subsonic. The shock wave is visible because of the abrupt change in the density of the air. The change in density causes a change in the refractive index of the air, and so the scenery behind it is optically distorted. This is similar to how a spoon in a glass of water looks "bent" at the water's surface, due to the difference between the refractive indices of water and air. It helps that this is seen nearly edge-on... if I had been a couple of rows further forward or back, it might not have been visible. Further information for the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j493HvCkMbM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transonic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mach_number https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bELu-if5ckU http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter3.html