Capture a rare image of a shock wave when the plane is near the speed of sound

Photographer Camden Thrasher was capturing a display of a US Navy fighter jet when he suddenly captured a remarkable close-up as the plane created a "shock wave path" at the moment it approached speed. sound.

Aviation and sports car photographer Camden Thrasher is at the EAA Airventure show featuring a squadron of VFA-106 Gladiators (officially Strike Fighter Squadron 106) in late 2021. The annual airshow is held at Wittman Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a city of nearly 70,000 US residents.

It was then that he captured this dramatic photo of the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet, the supersonic multirole fighter jet first introduced to the US Navy in 1984.

While the photo went viral online as an example of a jet breaking the sound barrier, Thrasher pointed out that the plane was not flying faster than the speed of sound. 

Impressive photo of photographer Camden Thrasher goes viral online

Thrasher told PetaPixel: 'There are different rules about a supersonic flight and for the most part they rule out doing so at low altitudes or in densely populated areas. That's why the photo is not a jet plane breaking the sound barrier as people think."

This often happens at airshows when the pilots will fly just below the speed of sound. But it's still something impressive without actually breaking the sound barrier.

What is actually seen in the photo is how the air around a supersonic jet is distorted as it approaches Mach 1 (the speed of sound in medium environment or about 1224km/h with air). air at sea level at 20 degrees Celsius).

Thrasher said: 'I'm not an aerodynamicist but I'll do my best to explain. The plane is flying a bit less than the speed of sound but as the air passes through different parts of the wings and fuselage the airflow itself can actually be supersonic in certain areas . When this happens, the air will be compressed or expanded, and those changes in pressure will change the way light is refracted or bent as it passes through.

The visible effect is shock wave lines or sometimes cone-shaped clouds that cover part of the plane if the air is humid enough.

It is known that the photo above was taken by Thrasher with a Nikon D5 DSLR camera at a focal length of 500mm, f/5, 1/2500 and ISO 50.