This paper is concerned with instability of flow fields which are dominated by the entropy mode with the presence of usual acoustic and vortical modes. These combined modes lead to nonlinear unstable waves which may occur in automobile, aircraft, or rocket engines. In this study instability in a side-burning rocket is investigated. It is shown that the energy growth rate parameters increase with an increase of the energy growth factor. The energy growth rate parameters for turbulent flows are larger than those for laminar flows. It is further shown that unstable wave motions for the high-temperature side-burning rocket are dictated mostly by the entropy mode, somewhat by the vortical mode, and least by the acoustic mode.