Sonic booms

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Dave Taylor
Am I being completely insensitive?
I thought the concerns about the Concorde SBs were overplayed.
Now people are going to raise a stink about the expected increase in SBs from all the rocketry, and I am thinking they need to pipe down.
Maybe I just haven't experienced a regular dose of SBs, or had my pets go nuts from it?
SBs: yay or nay?
 
An f16 in full ab is basically a wall of sonic booms. They fly around military city (sa) all the time. I know it's not the real overpressure, but they're loud. And sounds like freedom.
 
I wouldn’t want to hear it on a regular basis. In middle GA the F-15s out of WRB used to do it on a weekly basis and it scares the crap out of ya. Almost 50K up and it still rattles your whole house. Now they go offshore more because of noise complaints.

As far as Space X, it’s not a regular thing so I wouldn’t get worked up over it. Like the space shuttle, it’s also predicable so you know when it’s coming and plan ahead if necessary.
 
Velocity173 said:
I wouldn’t want to hear it on a regular basis. In middle GA the F-15s out of WRB used to do it on a weekly basis and it scares the crap out of ya. Almost 50K up and it still rattles your whole house. Now they go offshore more because of noise complaints.

As far as Space X, it’s not a regular thing so I wouldn’t get worked up over it. Like the space shuttle, it’s also predicable so you know when it’s coming and plan ahead if necessary.
Click to expand...
At what points do space x create sonic booms?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
They are planning on one every 2 days for 2025
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Yeah but those are mostly the Falcon rockets and a lot of them are landing on drone pads in the Atlantic. The Boca Chica Starship landings are the problem. Those aren’t happening on a regular basis.
 
mandm said:
At what points do space x create sonic booms?
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Points, as in areas around the country? They launch from Kennedy, Vandenburg and Boca Chica. The sonic boom are heard on reentry when the booster stage returns to the pad. They say it’s heard about 20 miles around the pad. That pad isn’t always in the launch area though so plenty of times it’s not heard because it’s hitting a drone pad out at sea.
 
I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember the Blackbird saying hello on its way from Beale up to I suppose the periphery of the USSR. Those were pretty low overpressure sonic boom events though. I have no idea what ours sound like from the 20's and 30'k's of feet. I do have a real fun memory of some person in eastern NV writing a scathing email to our base leadership in Fallon the morning after I flew a perfectly legal deck launched interceptor profile in an F-16. I think I hit Mach 1.7 or so. Subject line was "THEY DID IT AGAIN". And this lady proceeded to explain how my sonic boom was louder than (my buddy's) the day before. She rambled on and on about how I could have caused an avalanche (it was mid winter) or how I am causing the native tarantulas to leave. What a dim wit. It was from well above 30k ft, pointed well away from the ground, and in approved supersonic airspace. Maybe don't buy a house under the Fallon range training complex and expect something different, dumb ass?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Am I being completely insensitive?
I thought the concerns about the Concorde SBs were overplayed.
Now people are going to raise a stink about the expected increase in SBs from all the rocketry, and I am thinking they need to pipe down.
Maybe I just haven't experienced a regular dose of SBs, or had my pets go nuts from it?
SBs: yay or nay?
Click to expand...
Insensitive, yes. Because who cares about someone else’s property if you get to London an 1.5hr earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests


en.wikipedia.org

Anti-Concorde Project - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
I recall an old story, perhaps apocryphal, in which an Air Force base was receiving a very large number of complaints regarding sonic booms, with accompanying claims for compensation for broken windows and crockery. It became increasingly obvious people were making complaints and claims with little regard to actual operations, so the base CO decided to experiment. The base advertised to the community that there would be an upcoming day of heavy training and that they apologized for the increased noise. On the day in question, the CO directed a safety stand-down training day and nothing flew. Predictably, there was a large influx of noise complaints and claims for broken windows from the "heavy training" day.

As I said, likely apocryphal, but its feeds my prejudices that NIMBYs suck.

I do have first-hand knowledge of a women living near USAFA who called in a noise complaint about the Thunderbirds practicing for the following day's graduation, which happened to host the President that year. Irate that her baby had been woken by the sound of freedom, she opined that it would probably be alright if those jets crashed into the stadium and killed the President along with everyone else present. The Secret Service, who had shown up a few days prior to get things set up, were not amused. She got a house visit shortly thereafter. She evidently didn't understand that when she called in, her phone number and address showed up on our screens.
 
Noise complaints concerning KBED operations have been tracked for years. One time the JointSTARS test bird (T-3) was scheduled to depart KBED (it's basically a 707 with the old very loud engines). And Massport told neighboring communities about the departure. As sometimes happens, the departure was delayed but, of course, a few noise complaints about "that loud jet" were made just after T-3 was originally supposed to depart.

so AvNavCom, your story is probably not apocryphal.
 
AvNavCom said:
I recall an old story, perhaps apocryphal, in which an Air Force base was receiving a very large number of complaints regarding sonic booms, with accompanying claims for compensation for broken windows and crockery. It became increasingly obvious people were making complaints and claims with little regard to actual operations, so the base CO decided to experiment. The base advertised to the community that there would be an upcoming day of heavy training and that they apologized for the increased noise. On the day in question, the CO directed a safety stand-down training day and nothing flew. Predictably, there was a large influx of noise complaints and claims for broken windows from the "heavy training" day.

As I said, likely apocryphal, but its feeds my prejudices that NIMBYs suck.
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A while back when I lived in California, planes were spraying at night to stop an insect infestation that was threatening trees. King Airs were flying at 500 AGL at midnight or later, and lots of complaints were being made.

They published the spraying schedule, but one night they couldn’t fly due to low clouds (typical summer marine layer at 500). The next day, numerous complaints came in from people saying they were feeling ill from the chemicals (it was insect pheromones, not pesticide), the airplane sounds disturbed them, anything they could imagine.

Complaints were no longer addressed from that point on.
 
Bob Noel said:
Noise complaints concerning KBED operations have been tracked for years. One time the JointSTARS test bird (T-3) was scheduled to depart KBED (it's basically a 707 with the old very loud engines). And Massport told neighboring communities about the departure. As sometimes happens, the departure was delayed but, of course, a few noise complaints about "that loud jet" were made just after T-3 was originally supposed to depart.

so AvNavCom, your story is probably not apocryphal.
Click to expand...
JSTARS were ridiculously loud! We live under the pattern at Dobbins and when JSTARS would come up and do TnG’s, it was loud enough to make our dogs howl. Nothing else I’ve heard in 20 years of living here has been anywhere near as loud.
 
One of the coolest flybys I’ve seen ended up going supersonic. I was funny too because we didn’t hear a thing.

It was back in ‘95 or ‘96 and a MOA day at NBC with nothing really going on except two VMFA-533 Hornets just cruising around the airspace. I was standing behind the MOA controller in the radar room and watching these guys running the boundary of the MOA. We were bored with 5 minutes prior to the MOA closing so I asked the controller if they were going to do an attack. That’s what this MOA was designed for. MOA control asked them and they replied almost surprised but in the “affirmative.” All of us not on position ran outside to see the show. We waited at the base of the tower and within a few minutes, with no warning, the lead F-18 went right overhead maybe 100 ft and hauling the mail. Someone yells “look at that!” and points to the second one maybe a mile away with a complete cone of vapor enveloped around it. Well, all the excitement (so we thought) was over so we went inside still laughing and commenting how cool that was. As soon as I stepped into the radar room, the phone rings and it’s one of the radar sups who happened to be off that day. “Who in the hell just went supersonic?!” I told him we had an attack but didn’t know anything about supersonic. Over the next several minutes our phone rang off the hook with noise complaint inquires.

Apparently that second aircraft broke the sound barrier around Parris Island area and his sonic boom broke windows there at at Hilton Head. When they taxied in back at base, tower listened over their squadron freq and someone asked them “did you hit the number?” Reply was something like “yeah I think we did.” Probably one of the reasons why they don’t do attacks on the base like that anymore. It’s funny, I think if I never would’ve questioned the MOA controller, he never would’ve brought up the attack to them. ;)
 
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