Skydiver lands safely after historic jump from edge of space

[muriel_volestrangler]

83. It would be heard in a cone behind the falling man

where there wasn't anything to record it, apart from possibly the gondola.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom

Newshost:
Charles White, Poland asks: What does one hear aboard a supersonic aircraft during and after breaking the sound barrier?


Peter Benn:
You don't actually hear anything on board. All we see is the pressure wave moving down the aeroplane - it gives an indication on the instruments. And that's what we see of Mach 1. But we don't hear the sonic boom or anything like that. That's rather like the wake of ship - it's behind us.


Newshost:
Those passengers on board, sitting back in their leather seats and watching that Mach 1 speedo in front - what do they see, what do they feel?


Peter Benn:
They see the cabin display which shows the aircraft's altitude, groundspeed and Mach number which is the relationship to speed of sound. They see the indicator go through the figure 1 and then they know they've gone supersonic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3207470.stm

The 'barrier' was called that because as planes got close to the speed of sound, their aerodynamic surfaces, especially the control surfaces, started behaving in unexpected ways - which made some think you'd never be able to control a plane going through that range. But they worked out what was happening.

The effect on the pressure suit does seem to have been small. Exactly how much that was expected, either through computer simulations, or through any testing they'd done (there are supersonic wind tunnels), I don't know. I think they said the pressure of air inside gave a certain rigidity to it at high altitude that helped him maintain the correct posture.