My Dad’s friend sent these photos on for us to look at from San Francisco’s Fleetweek and I thought they were so spectacular, I just had to share. I’m including my favorites, but you can see them all on his site, here.
I love this picture with the San Francisco Bridge in the background.
And I like this one because it has Alcatraz in the background…. Very cool!
Look how close he is to the water! I hope the folks in the boats are wearing earplugs.
This is what he says about the above picture, which I thought was so cool!
A closeup of the above pic, notice the visual distortion caused by the shockwaves… cool huh?
The jet itself is not yet supersonic, but is in the transonic region. The air itself is accelerated to supersonic speed when it encounters an obstruction (like a bump on the fuselage). When it slows back down below supersonic speed, it creates a pressure wave which causes the visual distortions. Those pressure waves can be seen radiating from specific points on the aircraft (including the canopy). Someone sent me this explanation…I filed the note away, but can’t seem to find it at the moment! I’ll properly credit it when I find the name.
Forget the Oblique shock wave theory…doesn’t apply in this case since it’s not in the supersonic region.
And this is a very short video of a transonic pass performed by Blue Angels Soloist John Allison over San Francisco Bay during Fleet Week 2007.
*
Cool, huh?
If you’d like to see more of BZ’s photo collections, you can click here.
