Effect of shockwaves on primary flight controls

[WeekendFlyer]

I will take that as a compliment! But visualising transonic and supersonic airflow is hard without the benefit of considerable experience of working with a supersonic wind tunnel, which I don't have. Also, there do not appear to be many people around these days who have a really detailed understanding of this regime of flight.

Just to clarify: you are saying that, with the correct aerofoil and control surface profile, conventional flight control surfaces can remain effective throughout the transonic speed region and into supersonic? That makes sense, although I would like to know what the key differences are between a control surface design that remains effective and one that does not.