**5. Conclusions**

The use of light gas ballistic systems, in which the projectile acceleration channel is replaced by a Laval nozzle, makes it possible to generate hypersonic flows with a high Mach number. The gas density of such flows is sufficient for photometric optical measurements by shadow or interference methods. This makes it possible to study hypersonic flow models of any complexity. In addition, due to the high density of the hypersonic flow, it becomes possible to experimentally study the destructive effect of the hypersonic gas flow on the bows of hypersonic missiles and aircraft.

*Hypersonic Vehicles - Applications, Recent Advances, and Perspectives*
