
The Science of Flight—Breaking the Sound Barrier and Beyond
During and just after World War II, the quest for ever faster fighter planes reached an apparent natural barrier—the speed of sound. Yet, on approaching this limit, aircraft became unstable and uncontrollable. In this full lecture, discover how a new approach to aircraft design solved the problem of compressibility and shock waves in this transonic region, paving the way for supersonic flight and paved the way to breaking the sound barrier. […]