We analyze the possibility of predicting the structure of the jet at the formative stage using a comparison of experimental results and computations carried out for flows beyond an acoustic nozzle. The correspondence of the computational model to the conditions in which the experiments were performed is discussed. It is shown that the question of the degree of reliability of the computational prediction should be decided on the basis of comparison of the approximation relations that describe the experimental and computational data.Introduction. State of the question. Among the wide circle of problems of gas dynamics questions involving a jet flow that is characterized by a complicated structure and is multiparameter occupy a special place. Stationary jets have been described quite thoroughly, but far from exhaustively [1,2]. It should be kept in mind, however, that a jet, that is, an ejection of gas with a certain set of parameters into a surrounding medium with other parameters has, as a rule a limited time of existence. The outflow can be regarded as stationary in the case when the total time of its realization is much larger than the time for the structure to become steady and for the distribution of parameters of the jet to become quasistationary. Here it is obvious that the stationarity of the parameters in these zones of flow depends on the coordinates and the time to reach steady state increases with distance from the nozzle slit and the axis of the jet. This is reflected qualitatively, for example, in the estimates given in [3]. The analytic solution of the problem involving the formation of a cylindrical symmetric jet (beyond a crack acoustic nozzle) leads to an infinite time to establish stationary parameters in the flow region M > 7 for outflow into a vacuum. The study carried out in [3] is tentative, but the result is logically consistent, since the filling of the surrounding medium with the outflowing gas determines the nonstationarity of the process on the boundary of the jet throughout the time of its existence. The time for the quasistationary parameters to become established near the nozzle slit is determined by the specific conditions under which the flow is realized. The study of the dynamics of nonstationary flow is motivated by the need to estimate the reliability of the prediction of the gas-dynamic and thermodynamic parameters of the flow when solving applied problems [4--6] and in carrying out studies in related areas of science, in particular in the study of the processes of intermolecular and intramolecular energy transfer, processes of clustering and condensation in flows, and characteristics of erosion burns arising as the result of pulse action on solid targets [7,8].The structure of a nonstationary forming jet differs fundamentally from the structure of a quasistationary steady flow. The results of experimental study of the process of jet flow at the nonstationary stage are presented in [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. An attempt to estimate analytically aspects of the evolution ...