• TWeaK@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Oh I know, but the point I’m making is that things higher up go faster. The space station orbits the Earth in 92.9 minutes. Also, using mach numbers doesn’t really tell you anything without an altitude or pressure. Mach 1 at ground level is faster than mach 1 at 60,000 feet.

    The military is accutely aware of this, just look at the U-2 spy plane. That thing flies so high that the speed of sound is so low and the stall speed so high that they’re nearly the same - this is referred to as “coffin corner” of the flight envelope. Pilots have to be exceptionally careful banking at this altitude, as the inner wing will go slower than the outer wing in a turn, so you can have the tip of one wing stalling and the tip of the other wing breaking the speed of sound.