RIDE TO MACH 1 On the original THRUST SSC site, several movies in AVI format were available. I sampled several and the one I enjoyed the most was the video of the final supersonic run as viewed by a camera in the tail. There is also sound with this so you can hear Andy Green (the pilot) calling off the speeds. In the full-length version, the footage begins at a dead stop and records up through Mach 1 and then back to a stop again. Things to look for are the careening at about 600 mph. This is likely to be due to the well known change in the aerodynamics as one enters the transonic regime. You can also see condensation vortices initiated near the engine inlets and a cloud of condensation rising up between and over the engines just as he punches it through the measured mile; the latter is associated with the Prandtl-Glauert singularity. Both condensation phenomena can be seen in the above screen cap. Once he lets off you can clearly see these clouds sweeping toward the front of the vehicle. It is interesting to compare the position of these clouds to the position of the blue (and presumably low pressure) areas seen in the CFD picture on the opening page. Once the speeds get up above 600 mph, there seems to be a definite difference in the background sound. I assume that this is due to the difference in the sound generated by turbulence, rather than the engine. At about 450-500 mph the picture blacks out. Due to the large accelerations, this is only a short time. However, you can still hear the pilot calling out the speeds. Don't be alarmed. I now have the following possibilities for downloading this video. Full version. Beware: This is 32.6 Megs. Yes, I said 32.6 Megs! Shortened version. This version starts at about 350 mph and contains most of the interesting features. It does begin in or just before the blacked out portion of the video, so give it time and the picture will return. Its size ( 26 Megs ) is somewhat less than the full version. Just click on the above links to download the movie. If it doesn't work at first, try a right click on the link, followed by a Save (link, target, etc) to Disk. Here's an AVI FAQ which may be of some help. If worse comes to worse, then please drop me an e-mail. Many, many thanks to Jason Lockhart at VT's Multimedia Lab for the reprocessing of the movie.

The above picture is just a screen capture of the AVI. The video itself was obtained off the public-image portion of the THRUST SSC site.

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