A discrimination-experiment method is developed to investigate the transient heat transfer of air jet impingement by discretizing the solid domain into mutually adiabatic test cylinders. This method can not only reduce the influence of the transverse heat transfer of a solid domain on the heat transfer characteristics of the jet but can also simplify the two-dimensional or three-dimensional heat conduction problem into a one-dimensional problem. Moreover, the discrimination-experiment method eliminates the embedment of thermocouples into the solid domains, further improving the accuracy and reliability of the proposed method. The transient heat transfer characteristics of a supersonic air jet impinging on a high-temperature target (860°C) and the effects of thermo physical parameters, such as the density, specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity and nozzle-to-target distance (H/D = 3, 4, and 5) are analyzed in detail using the discrimination-experiment method. The results provide important guidance for the thermal design of supersonic air jet impingement.