Supersonic aircraft Supersonic aircraft A supersonic aircraft is an aircraft able to fly faster than the speed of sound (Mach number 1). Supersonic aircraft were developed in the second half of the twentieth century and have been used almost entirely for research and military purposes. Only two, Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144, ever entered service for civil use as airliners. Fighter jets are the most common example of supersonic aircraft. The aerodynamics of supersonic flight is called compressible flow because of the compression (physics) associated with the shock waves or "sonic boom" created by any object travelling faster than sound. Aircraft flying
Shock wave a fast moving supercritical thin layer to a stagnant thick heap. This flow configuration is particularly interesting because it is analogous to some hydraulic and aerodynamic situations associated with flow regime changes from supercritical to subcritical flows. Astrophysical environments feature many different types of shock waves. Some common examples are supernovae shock waves or blast waves travelling through the interstellar medium, the bow shock caused by the Earth's magnetic field colliding with the solar wind and shock waves caused by galaxies colliding with each other. Another interesting type of shock in astrophysics is the quasi-steady reverse shock or termination shock