Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
My lecture deals with the effect of the compressibility of air on bodies moving through it at speeds ranging from the velocity of sound (710 m.p.h. at high altitude) as an upper limit to a lower limit ranging roughly from half to threequarters the velocity of sound. Somewhere within this range will commence a very rapid increase of the drag coefficient of an aircraft as a result of the formation of local shock waves.