The other thread was starting to drag on and you may not have seen this. I thought I would share this picture that my best friend took at the Pensacola beach show a few years ago. This aircraft did a high speed pass at aprox. mach .95. Hope you enjoy.
Nice pic. I bet it was a cool site to see that huge bomber flying that fast!
The B-1B is an awesome sight. I’ve had the thrill of seeing Bones twice at the Oshkosh Airshow. One thing’s for sure… they can scoot. And noisy things, too! I’d love to ride in one…
Nice pic!
The only thing…this is not a super sonic passage.
read this:
http://www.galleryoffluidmechanics.com/conden/pg_sing.htm
Andy
He said it was at Mach .95, you don’t go supersonic until you break the speed barrier, which is mach 1, correct? There is a pic somewhere of a B-2 Stealth with the condensation ring (I forget what its name is), its really awesome looking!
As stated in Andy’s reference, not all photos of an aircraft generating that condensation cloud are at Mach 1.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
No, this jet was definately NOT going supersonic. Any time a jet goes supersonic at an airshow or anywhere around people it is ALWAYS an accident usually followed by time “flying a desk”.
I wouldn’t want to bet my paycheck on it, but I’ll eat my hat if that buff photo wasn’t ‘altered’ to show that shock ring. In my 20 years of military aviation experience I’ve never seen anything like that on a heavy. It’s not uncommon, however, to see vapor areas in the low pressure areas on the top portion of the wings, or more commonly, in the vortices off the wingtips. If memory serves, the B-52 has a top speed significantly less than .9-anything. Bad things start happening after that…like the wings coming off.
Brad