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The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a field panel method for the aerodynamic design of transonic aircraft configurations. The method is based on the full-potential equation which is solved on the basis of a BEM formulation. The problem is reduced to a system of two nonlinear integro-differential equations for the disturbance potential in the field and the singularity distribution on the body surface. An iteration procedure incorporating the boundary element method to satisfy the Dirichlet boundary condition on the body was coupled with a modular extension to account for nonlinear compressibility effects (including weak shock waves). Several methodical enhancements like an adaptive field mesh have been derived to make the practical application of the method more feasible. The procedure described has the potential to extend an arbitrary panel method modular to account for transonic compressibility effects. Preliminary calculation results are presented.