Example 13-13  Sonic Boom

You are at an air show when a supersonic airplane flies directly over you at an altitude of 1.20 km and a Mach number of
1.10. How long after the airplane was directly overhead do you hear the sonic boom? Use 343 m>s for the speed of sound
in air.

Set Up
vairplane∆t
Mach 1.10 means that the speed of the airplane Mach angle:
is 1.10 times the speed of sound. You hear the
vsound
sonic boom when the Mach cone passes over sin uM =      (13-37)
you, a time t after the airplane is overhead. vairplane
OM
As the sketch shows, when this happens the air-
plane flying at altitude H = 1.20 km has flown
past you a distance vairplane t, where vairplane = H
1.10vsound. We’ll use Equation 13-37 and trigo- sonic boom
nometry to solve this problem.

Solve
Since we know the speed of the airplane, we The speed of the airplane is vairplane = 1.10vsound, so Equation 13-37
can use ­Equation 13-37 to find the Mach becomes
angle uM.
vsound vsound 1
sin uM = = =
vairplane 1.10vsound 1.10

So uM is the angle whose sine is equal to 1>1.10:

1
uM = sin-1 a b = sin-1 0.909 = 65.4
1.10

The figure above shows that the distances From the figure,
H and vairplane t are two sides of a right
H
triangle. Since H is opposite to the angle uM tan uM =
and vairplane t is adjacent to uM, their ratio is vairplane t
the tangent of uM. We know the values of uM = 65.4°, H = 1.20 km, vairplane =
1.10vsound, and vsound = 343 m>s, so we can solve for t:
H H
t = =
vairplane tan uM 1.10vsound tan uM
1.20 km 103 m
= a b
1.101343 m>s2 tan 65.4 1 km
= 1.46 s
The sonic boom reaches you 1.46 s after the airplane flies overhead.

Reflect
Note that if the airplane emits a sound wave when it is directly above you at altitude H = 1.20 km = 1200 m, that sound
would need a time H>vsound = 11200 m2 > 1343 m>s2 = 3.49 s to reach you. The sonic boom reaches you before that,
just 1.46 s after the airplane is directly above you. That’s because the shock wave is made up of wave crests that were
emitted by the airplane before the airplane was directly above you (see Figure 13-27a) and so the wave crests have had
more time to reach you.