Results are presented of a flight investigation conducted to survey the flow field generated by airplanes flying at supersonic speeds. The pressure signatures of an F-100, an F-104, and a B-58 airplane, repre¬senting widely varying configurations, at distances from 120 to 425 feet from the generating aircraft and at Mach numbers from 1.2 to 1.8 are shown.nCalculations were made by using Whitham's method and were compared with the experimental results. The procedure used for calculating Whitham's F(y) function is given in the appendix. Good agreement was obtained for the bow shock-wave strength, and overall characteristics of the flow field were predicted;however, all details of the flow field were not accurately predicted. This was especially true at the higher Mach numbers. Since the area distribution used in the calculations was for a Mach 1 equivalent body of revolution, experiments were made to obtain the Mach line area distribution for one of the configurations. When this area distribution was used in the calculations, the results were improved.
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