Breaking the Sound Barrier

Have you ever seen photos of an aircraft breaking the sound barrier? It is a strange phenomenon, and interesting how it clings to the aircraft until you can increase your speed to go through that zone.



The photo in this post does a good job of showing how the "barrier" flows around the plane. Typically, the nose, or on some fighter jets the engine nacelle, hits the front of the "barrier" and then slowly leaves the aircraft. When this happens, there is a large "boom" known as "breaking the sound barrier," which some of you may have heard.

The Boom occurs because the plane catches up to, and passes, the sound it already has produced. At that point there is a collision between the vibrating air (sound) it has produced and the current sound it is making. Faster than this point, the plane arrives to strike before the warning of its sound does. This phenomenon only happens at the instant an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, and demonstrated in the photo, it literally appears like the aircraft goes through a wall.