Subsonic vs supersonic ammo skin#

High supersonic aircrafts are mostly recon airplanes, and hypersonic aircrafts are highly experimental aircrafts (with the exception of the space shuttle). Those are Concorde and Tu-144, designed as passenger aircrafts, but operation abandoned due to high expenses.

Only two types of supersonic transport have ever been built, and both exceeded the average cost of a flight. Supersonic Transport (SST) is a realized, but an expensive, aviation challenge. The local air density varies due to shock waves, expansion, and flow choking resulting in a drastic change from subsonic flight conditions. The airframe has been aerodynamically optimized to minimize compressibility effects and drag effects. The airframe is mostly made of high grade titanium and aluminium to withstand the high loading in maneuvers and damage during combat. They use low bypass turbofan engines as power plant, and the structure is designed to withstand vibrations and loads occurring at the supersonic speeds. F-15E, Su 27, Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon). Supersonic aircrafts are mostly military aircrafts, designed for combat (ex. Supersonic regime is also divided into supersonic (15) classes. With the advancement of composite material technology, fibre reinforced composite materials with high strength and low weight are introduced.

Subsonic vs supersonic ammo skin#

Airplane skin is built with aluminium and airframe may consist of aluminium and steel. The wings are usually straight or with low sweep angle. Structurally the loading on the airframe varies from airplane to airplane. Light weight subsonic aircrafts use piston engines as the power plant, while business jets and commercial airliners use turboprop or high bypass turbofan engines. Business jets and commercial airliners can fly at maximum speeds up to Mach 0.85. Small lightweight airplanes have lower Mach numbers, which is around Mach 0.2. Most of the aircrafts produced are subsonic aircrafts, which are designed to fly below Mach 0.8. If an aircraft is subsonic its maximum speed is less than 1 (M 1). This speed is usually expressed by the Mach number (M) which is the ratio between the air speed and the speed of sound.

An aircraft designed to fly below the speed of sound is known as subsonic aircraft, while aircraft designed to fly faster than the speed of sound is known as supersonic aircraft. The speed of the aircraft becomes the relative velocity of the air flow, commonly used as airspeed. In the context of relative motion, the aircraft can be considered as a body, which is stationary in a flow of air, for the analytical purposes. When the velocity of the air flow increases, the properties related to the compressibility change significantly resulting in a change, in the aerodynamic forces around a body within the flow. Air flowing at low speeds can be considered as a viscous fluid with incompressible properties, like water. The velocity of the air flow plays a critical role in determining the characteristic of air flow.