Does new aero simulate a shock cone off the nose of an aircraft?

[allmhuran]

I was messing with spaceplanes this morning before work, but only for about half an hour.

I built a plane that topped out at around 1150 m/s before the Mk2 cockpit exploded from overheating. The Mk2 cockpit (and nearly all of the other spaceplane parts) have a heat tolerance of 2000K.

I then replaced that with a Mk1 command pod, which has a heat tolerance of 2400K. The plane was able to reach 1300 m/s in level flight, and got up to 1450 on descent before bits started popping. But, of course, it was still primarily constucted from other spaceplane parts which go up to 2000K, same as the Mk2 pod.

What exactly is going on here? Is the pod "absorbing" the bulk of the heating because it is at the front? Or does the game actually simulate a shockwave such that the frontmost part doesn't just absorb the heat, it also to some extent protects the parts behind it (as long as they are far enough back, ie, "inside" the shock cone)?

Edited April 28, 2015 by allmhuran

[Van Disaster]

I'm not sure it does any supersonic stuff, doesn't seem to be a flight regime change; FAR does model a shock cone but the effects aren't as big as you'd think really.

[Claw]

There is some element of the game trying to simulate shock effects. Also, the different parts have different conduction values and different heat capacities. So you may be hitting a combination of all of those things.

Cheers,

~Claw

[NathanKell]

Yep, bluntness will matter, and there's some occlusion going on too looks like.