You are given a proprietary new stealth fighter from Lockheed Martin’s
Skunkworks on your first day, so you are not aware of it’s complex
geometry (which is used to deflect radar to trick it into thinking
there are 30 of them flying at the enemy) and it is simplified to you
to have an average deflection angle of
degrees. Since
the design is for the bomber to fly at hypersonic speeds, the Mach
Number is taken to be 3.2 and the air is assumed to have a specific
heat capacity of
. Your goal as a young aerospace engineer is
to provide your boss with the strong and weak shock wave angles for
these conditions so that they can run wind tunnel tests on the bomber
by lunch. If the beta angle is greater than 90 or imaginary, the
shockwave will detach and the aerodynamic forces may destroy the
bomber mid flight. Will this occur?