A Note on the Limitations of Aircraft and Aerofoils used for High Flying Aircraft

Extract

The formation of shock waves as a limitation in aircraft design has been considered only, as far as the author knows, in the cases of wing sections at low operating lift coefficients and of the airscrew efficiency. There is, however, a further limitation for high flying aircraft in that the small air density causes the aircraft, even at the stall, to travel at a value of Mach number (V/a) which will cause a shock stall to form on the wing. In some cases the aircraft will be able to prevent this shock stall at high C _L by flying faster, but in others, due to high wing loading, the wing sections will be shock stalled at all C _L values and the only remedy will be to decrease the wing loading.