That is about half the amount of time it would take typical airliners to fly the same distance. It could fly people from London to New York in less than 3 1/2 hours. The Concorde's maximum speed was more than twice the speed of sound. The space shuttle orbiter flies at supersonic speeds during portions of its mission.Īn airplane called the Concorde was the most notable passenger airplane to travel at supersonic speeds. Military fighter aircraft also fly this fast. Image Credit: Andrew Davidhazy/Rochester Institute of TechnologyĪ bullet fired from a gun is an example of an object that flies at supersonic speeds. The bullet is traveling at 1.5 times the speed of sound. This picture shows a bullet and the air flowing around it. "Chuck" Yeager became the first person to fly an aircraft faster than the speed of sound.Ī bullet fired from a gun travels at supersonic speeds. Supersonic includes speeds up to five times faster than the speed of sound, or Mach 5. Flight that is faster than Mach 1 is supersonic. The Mach number is the ratio of the speed of the aircraft to the speed of sound. These speeds are referred to by Mach numbers. The speed of sound is about 768 miles per hour (1,236 kilometers per hour) at sea level. Vehicles that fly at supersonic speeds are flying faster than the speed of sound. The regimes of flight are subsonic, transonic, supersonic and hypersonic. Supersonic flight is one of the four speeds of flight. It is the speed traveled by rockets and the space shuttle as they go into orbit. This is more than five times the speed of sound. This is the speed traveled by most of the commercial airplanes that carry people and cargo. Words to Know (based on Earth's atmospheric conditions):
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