Linear stability analysis, which includes the effects of nonparallelism and body curvature, is used to calculate theNfactors of stationary and traveling disturbances for the same experimental conditions measured by Poll for flow over a long swept cylinder. The correlatingNfactors for traveling disturbances have less scatter than the correlatingNfactors of stationary disturbances. The mean value of the correlatingNfactor for traveling disturbances is 14.9 and 7.4 for stationary disturbances. Therefore, for an initial amplitude of a stationary disturbance that is 100 times larger than that of a traveling disturbance, the amplitude of the traveling disturbance is 18 times larger than the amplitude of a stationary disturbance at the location of transition onset. The calculations indicate that transition is due to traveling disturbances; this result is in agreement with the experimental observations. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.