Quote:
Originally Posted by Crumpp
The relative performance is intact and all aircraft gain equally
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All aircraft will see a reduction in drag in the transsonic realm, true. But not all aircraft can get to that realm, and so see no benefit.
In 1946 it was possible to fly a handful of planes fast enough to just break Mach 1 or so, if you dove just right. I am sure that a guy working with a group that would restore Fw 190s would agree that D-9s were not capable of supersonic flight.
The simple fact is that all aircraft respond to the atmospheric model the same way, or at least we hope so, but not all aircraft can exploit flaws in said atmosphere.
The faster aircraft, whose performance was severely limited by wave drag, etc. in reality, gain a significant speed advantage over others.
It should be plain to see that the relative performance is not intact in this case.