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Not sure if this belongs in the calc section, but it seemed most appropriate. The Elder Dragon Valstrax (From Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate) is based on a jet. I was interested in how fast it flies, given Valstrax is basically a living rocket. Here are a couple of video examples of Valstrax flying at high speed.
You can see in both examples Valstrax produces visible shockwave and a sonic boom when it speeds up in midair. That shockwave looks like a vapor cone. Vapor cones occur when an object approaches the sound barrier, as some air moves faster than the speed of sound over the object and some air moves slower than sound. The presence of the shockwave in the FMV cutscene suggests it's not just another of the graphical flourishes.
So two questions.
You can see in both examples Valstrax produces visible shockwave and a sonic boom when it speeds up in midair. That shockwave looks like a vapor cone. Vapor cones occur when an object approaches the sound barrier, as some air moves faster than the speed of sound over the object and some air moves slower than sound. The presence of the shockwave in the FMV cutscene suggests it's not just another of the graphical flourishes.
So two questions.
- Is the shockwave a vapor cone? I feel like it probably is just based on Valstrax's design origins and the presence of a sonic boom, but I might be missing another kind of visible shockwave.
- Does this suggest Valstrax is much slower than the hypersonic/FTL figures given on the wiki page? A vapor cone requires air flow to be both subsonic and supersonic, so at the moments when it appears Valstrax has to be around the speed of sound. Note that this is movement speed specifically, but Valstrax does use that movement speed in combat.
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