In short, a pressure wave of air builds in front of whatever is moving that fast. The problem with the sound barrier is what happens as you approach it and then pass through.
SPEED OF SOUND FPS FREE
As a result of Hough’s flight, the P38 received a special “dive flap” control to help free the controls when the speed got too high. As Hough discovered, the subsonic control surfaces no longer work right at supersonic speeds, but it can be done. There’s a plaque in England that commemorates that flight in 1943, but I’m sure there must be other plaques in other countries, as well.īefore I hear from all the engineers (except the aeronautical engineers) that a prop-driven plane cannot go supersonic because the propeller has to break the sound barrier long before the aircraft does, it is possible - when gravity assists the aircraft - for a prop-driven plane to go supersonic. I say “might” because almost every air force of that period has a similar story. At the time, he was trying to solve a control surface problem with the twin-engined P38 Lightning fighter, so he took one to over 40,000 feet, nosed it over into a steep dive and might have become the first man to ever break the barrier in an airplane. Hough, the grandson of the founder of Daisy and later a president of the firm himself. Young folks don’t think much about it these days because supersonic flight is a foregone conclusion but back in the 1940s, it hadn’t yet been achieved by a manned aircraft in level flight.Ī couple pilots inadvertently broke the barrier in dives from high altitude during World War II when they were testing certain fighter aircraft, and one of them was Cass S. The sound barrier is a lot more familiar to people of my generation, because it was being talked about and always in the news when I was a youngster in the 1950s.
We’re seeing an upturn of fundamental questions in our social networks and through customer service representatives that tell us that this topic needs to be emphasized once again. Many of them are older firearm shooters, but many others are younger shooters with no real background in the shooting sports. This report has been done in bits and pieces many times over the years, but I’m putting it together today because of a surge of new airgunners coming online. The text that’s not bolded is the original report. I have inserted my remarks that are updates as of December, 2021, and they are bolded for you.
What you are about to read is what the airgun community thought was true, back in August of 2011. Freom October to December of that year I did a test with a Whiscombe rifle that showed that pellets can break the sound barrier and still be accurate. I learned a lot since this report was published, back in 2011.