Last time (OK, quite a while ago actually), I explained the basic principle (from the Newtonian end of things; we can explain it using pressure, but that’s more complicated) of how wings generate lift when travelling at subsonic speeds, arguably the most important principle of physics affecting our modern world. However, as the second World War came to an end and aircraft started to get faster and faster, problems started to appear.
The first aircraft to approach the speed of sound (Mach 1, or around 700-odd miles an hour depending on air pressure) were WWII fighter aircraft; most only had top speeds of around 400-500mph or so whilst cruising, but could approach the magic number when going into a steep dive. When they did so, they found their aircraft began suffering from severe control issues and would shake violently; there are stories of Japanese Mitsubishi Zeroes that would plough into the ground at full speed, unable to pull out of a deathly transonic dive. Subsequent aerodynamic analyses of these aircraft suggest that if any of them had in fact broken the sound barrier, their aircraft would most likely have been shaken to pieces. For this reason, the concept of ‘the sound barrier’ developed.
The problem arises from the Doppler effect (which is also, incidentally, responsible for the stellar red-shift that tells us our universe is expanding), and the fact that as an aircraft moves it emits pressure waves, carried through the air by molecules bumping into one another. Since this exactly the same method by which sound propagates in air, these pressure waves move at the speed of sound, and travel outwards from the aircraft in all directions. If the aircraft is travelling forwards, then each time it emits a pressure wave it will be a bit further forward than the centre of the pressure wave it emitted last, causing each wave in front of the aircraft to get closer together and waves behind it to spread out. This is the Doppler Effect.
Now, when the aircraft starts travelling very quickly, this effect becomes especially pronounced, wave fronts becoming compressed very close to one another. When the aircraft is at the speed of sound, the same speed at which the waves propagate, it catches up with the wave fronts themselves and all wave fronts are in the same place just in front of the aircraft. This causes them to build up on top of one another into a band of high-pressure air, which is experienced as a shockwave; the pressure drop behind this shockwave can cause water to condense out of the air and is responsible for pictures such as these.
But the shockwave does not just occur at Mach 1; we must remember that the shape of an aerofoil is such to cause air to travel faster over the top of the wing than it does normally. This means parts of the wing reach supersonic speeds, effectively, before the rest of the aircraft, causing shockwaves to form over the wings at a lower speed. The speed at which this first occurs is known as the critical Mach number. Since these shockwaves are at a high-pressure, then Bernoulli’s principle tells us they cause air to slow down dramatically; this contributes heavily to aerodynamic drag, and is part of the reason why such shockwaves can cause major control issues. Importantly, we must note that shockwaves always cause air to slow down to subsonic speeds, since the shockwave is generated at the point of buildup of all the pressure waves so acts as a barrier between the super- and sub-sonic portions of the airflow. However, there is another problem with this slowing of the airflow; it causes the air to have a higher pressure than the supersonic air in front of the shockwave. Since there is always a force from high pressure to low pressure, this can cause (at speeds sufficiently higher above the critical Mach number) parts of the airflow close to the wing (the boundary layer, which also experience surface friction from the wing) to change direction and start travelling forwards. This causes the boundary layer to recirculate, forming a turbulent portion of air that generates very little lift and quite a lot of drag, and for the rest of the airflow to separate from the wing surface; an effect known as boundary layer separation, (or Mach stall, since it causes similar problems to a regular stall) responsible for even more problems.
The practical upshot of all of this is that flying at transonic speeds (close to and around the speed of sound) is problematic and inefficient; but once we push past Mach 1 and start flying at supersonic speeds, things change somewhat. The shockwave over the wing moves to its trailing edge, as all of the air flowing over it is now travelling at supersonic speeds, and ceases to pose problems, but now we face the issues posed by a bow wave. At subsonic speeds, the pressure waves being emitted by the aircraft help to push air out of the way and mean it is generally deflected around the wing rather than just hitting it and slowing down dramatically; but at subsonic speeds, we leave those pressure waves behind us and we don’t have this advantage. This means supersonic air hits the front of the air and is slowed down or even stopped, creating a portion of subsonic air in front of the wing and (you guessed it) another shockwave between this and the supersonic air in front. This is known as a bow wave, and once again generates a ton of drag.
We can combat the formation of the wing by using a supersonic aerofoil; these are diamond-shaped, rather than the cambered subsonic aerofoils we are more used to, and generate lift in a different way (the ‘skipping stone’ theory is actually rather a good approximation here, except we use the force generated by the shockwaves above and below an angled wing to generate lift). The sharp leading edge of these wings prevents bow waves from forming and such aerofoils are commonly used on missiles, but they are inefficient at subsonic speeds and make takeoff and landing nigh-on impossible.
The other way to get round the problem is somewhat neater; as this graphic shows, when we go past the speed of sound the shockwave created by the aeroplane is not flat any more, but forms an angled cone shape- the faster we go, the steeper the cone angle (the ‘Mach angle’ is given by the formula sin(a)=v/c, for those who are interested). Now, if we remember that shockwaves cause the air behind them to slow down to subsonic speeds, it follows that if our wings lie just behind the shockwave, the air passing over them at right angles to the shockwave will be travelling at subsonic speeds, and the wing can generate lift perfectly normally. This is why the wings on military and other high-speed aircraft (such as Concorde) are ‘swept back’ at an angle; it allows them to generate lift much more easily when travelling at high speeds. Some modern aircraft even have variable-sweep wings (or ‘swing wings’), which can be pointed out flat when flying subsonically (which is more efficient) before being tucked back into a swept position for supersonic flight.
Aerodynamics is complicated.
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