When was supersonic speeds over land made illegal?

After Maverick did this:

Miramar.jpg



The real answer: March 1973. Source: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_or...t_noise/media/noise_policy_on_supersonics.pdf
 
Illegal for civilian but not for military in designated high speed corridors.
 
Interesting newsreel clips about the battle over Concorde noise here:


(This is from the classic 12-hour 1987 BBC series "Reaching for The Skies," probably the best aviation documentary ever.)
 
Velocity173 said:
Illegal for civilian but not for military in designated high speed corridors.
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Agreed in a practical sense, in that all supersonic corridors live within military SUA. That being said, N registered civilian flown ATAC F-21 Kfirs break the number all the time overland, within the confines of said SUA, under DoD contract. I'd submit if you owned an F-4 (insert other supersonic capable civilian owned aircraft), and were granted access to said airspace, one could also fly supersonic as a civilian.
 
35 AoA said:
Agreed in a practical sense, in that all supersonic corridors live within military SUA. That being said, N registered civilian flown ATAC F-21 Kfirs break the number all the time overland, within the confines of said SUA, under DoD contract. I'd submit if you owned an F-4 (insert other supersonic capable civilian owned aircraft), and were granted access to said airspace, one could also fly supersonic as a civilian.
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I believe the majority are in SUA. This one is the only one that I’ve seen outside of SUA.
 
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Love the corridor map. Two of my best friends in college were from Eastman and Hawkinsville, respectively.
 
35 AoA said:
Interesting......I've never flown in one that wasn't SUA, but I suppose there is always an exception (or a couple) :)
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Yep, Post maint F-15s out of Warner Robbins use it. They sometimes go off shore to minimize the impact on central GA though.
 
BigBadLou said:
A) Maverick never went supersonic by the tower.
B) This picture is wrong, he went CCW around the tower in a left bank so his nose should be pointed left. (attaching a screengrab from the movie)
C) Wrong location too. (not Fightertown tower)



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There’s numerous continuity errors in the flight scenes in Top Gun. I was bored in a film class wins ago and made a video of all of them as a backdrop for a paper on continuity controls in movie making.

The backdrop video for the presentation was made on a dual VHS editing machine (with shuttle jog wheels!) and then captions added with a super dumb early version of what we’d now call a chyron machine. Then overdubbed with audio from the musical soundtrack on the audio track.

That took a full day in the video studio back then. Nowadays you could whip that out on a home PC in 15 minutes.

But Top Gun is a great movie for horrendous continuity errors in the flying scenes.

I also threw in some total crap errors from Blue Thunder, Iron Eagle, and a couple others just for good measure. The best are when RC models are used and the bushes on the ground would be massive trees at the scale of the models and they’re still too big. :)

CGI sucks but at least they can get away with making stuff to proper scale.

And they don’t manage to somehow kill Art Scholl in the filming process either. :(
 
When I was a kid, from 1971-76 we lived under a central Texas MOA that was apparently used for fighter training, as I could catch glimpses of jets wheeling about the sky at high altitude. Sonic booms that rattled the windows and walls were a common occurrence.
 
In the 1960s, Boeing had plans for a SuperSonic Transport, the Boeing 2707 SST, but those were canceled for economic reasons, and for fear of sonic booms. The Anglo-French Concorde flew for a while, offering transatlantic times of just over three hours, but as the fleet aged it wasn’t replaced.

After the Boeing was canceled, the United States banned supersonic civilian flight over the continental United States. This was allegedly because of noise concerns, but I suspect — as do other experts — that it was actually designed to limit flights by the Concorde. Having dropped a supersonic civilian plane ourselves, we didn’t want to have our noses rubbed in the fact that the British and French were flying one.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...sonic-flight-glenn-reynolds-column/446679001/
 
denverpilot said:
There’s numerous continuity errors in the flight scenes in Top Gun.
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Just about any plane scenes on TV normally have errors in them. I was just watching an episode of a series last Friday and in one scene on the way somewhere they are in a Gulfstream. On the way back, and you know it's supposed to be the same plane because the interior is identical, the exterior shot is a Learjet.That's a common one, mixing up exterior shots in the same show. Any time there are airplane scenes I always perk up because I know I'm probably about to catch an error.
 
BrianNC said:
Any time there are airplane scenes I always perk up because I know I'm probably about to catch an error
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My biggest laugh is when they give a turbine a rotary engine sound. They (the no-nothing about airplanes directors/producers) do it every time. Same with motorcycle scenes. They'll give a 4 cylinder high performance bike a two-stroke or a thumper sound. You'd think they would have competent editors that would catch stuff like that, but I digress, most movies are made for the lowest form IQ audiences who wouldn't know a radial engine from a turbine or a 2-stroke from a 4-stroke. :rolleyes:
 
ETres said:
When I was a kid, from 1971-76 we lived under a central Texas MOA that was apparently used for fighter training, as I could catch glimpses of jets wheeling about the sky at high altitude. Sonic booms that rattled the windows and walls were a common occurrence.
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Same with our ranch property in eastern Colorado. We were smack dab in the middle of the Minot B-52 bomber runs and the Buckley/Lowry fighter jet operations. Sonic booms were almost a daily occurrence when I was growing up. Same for the low level B-52 runs. Most awesome stuff I've ever seen in my life. To this day I can remember stacking hay and a group of five B-52's about 100 ft. off the deck were coming right at us as we were on the haystack. They were so low and so close I could see the green glare shields of the pilots as they were flying toward us. As they flew over we were literally almost knocked off the haystack due to the turbulence they created. I will never forget that! The most awesome thing I've ever experienced in my life. :rockon:
 
azblackbird said:
most movies are made for the lowest form IQ audiences who wouldn't know a radial engine from a turbine or a 2-stroke from a 4-stroke. :rolleyes:
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... and are made by the lowest form IQ producers and directors who wouldn't know a radial engine from a turbine or a 2-stroke from a 4-stroke. Case in point, The Aviator, the Howard Hughes bio-pic with Leonardo DiCaprio. In the interview in the "Bonus Features" section of the DVD, director Scorsese said that before he made the film he knew nothing about aviation.

And it shows.
 
denverpilot said:
There’s numerous continuity errors in the flight scenes in Top Gun.
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Numerous? Try dozens and dozens. Though the target audience this movie was made for is so dumb, they won't notice.
Only us, smart guys (or smart-azz guys? :D ) can tell.
Still a "fun" movie if you ignore the blatant mistakes, errors and oversights.

Back on topic: sonic booms are cool. Love 'em. Too bad they've been outlawed.
 
BigBadLou said:
Back on topic: sonic booms are cool. Love 'em. Too bad they've been outlawed.
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Last sonic boom I heard was in 1992. The space shuttle was landing in Florida and shook my little apartment as it went over.

For a kid growing up in the 60s sonic booms were normal.
 
BrianNC said:
Just about any plane scenes on TV normally have errors in them. I was just watching an episode of a series last Friday and in one scene on the way somewhere they are in a Gulfstream. On the way back, and you know it's supposed to be the same plane because the interior is identical, the exterior shot is a Learjet.That's a common one, mixing up exterior shots in the same show. Any time there are airplane scenes I always perk up because I know I'm probably about to catch an error.
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I don't watch it on purpose but Criminal Minds has a bad habit of doing this.
 
BigBadLou said:
Numerous? Try dozens and dozens. Though the target audience this movie was made for is so dumb, they won't notice.
Only us, smart guys (or smart-azz guys? :D ) can tell.
Still a "fun" movie if you ignore the blatant mistakes, errors and oversights.

Back on topic: sonic booms are cool. Love 'em. Too bad they've been outlawed.
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While some of target audience might be naive, there were plenty of intelligent people who were inspired by the flying scenes enough to join the Navy. I think most civilians would be surprised to know how many current and former Naval Aviators who were influenced by the movie and continue to enjoy the movie as adults. A 500 percent increase in people wanting to become Naval Aviators. Like these two individuals:

https://warontherocks.com/2016/04/top-gun-at-30-a-retrospective-from-two-naval-aviators/
 
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azblackbird said:
My biggest laugh is when they give a turbine a rotary engine sound. They (the no-nothing about airplanes directors/producers) do it every time. Same with motorcycle scenes. They'll give a 4 cylinder high performance bike a two-stroke or a thumper sound. You'd think they would have competent editors that would catch stuff like that, but I digress, most movies are made for the lowest form IQ audiences who wouldn't know a radial engine from a turbine or a 2-stroke from a 4-stroke. :rolleyes:
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Saw that last night watching an episode of Airwolf. C-130 cranking with a radial engine sound. Things got much worse when Airwolf was loaded in the back of the C-130 and while inflight, cranked its engines and somehow used reverse thrust to go out the back ramp. :confused:
 
azblackbird said:
My biggest laugh is when they give a turbine a rotary engine sound.
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...or when people mix up "rotary" and "radial". ;)

Velocity173 said:
While some of target audience might be naive, there were plenty of intelligent people who were inspired by the flying scenes enough to join the Navy. I think most civilians would be surprised to know how many current and former Naval Aviators who were influenced by the movie and continue to enjoy the movie as adults. A 500 percent increase in people wanting to become Naval Aviators. Like these two individuals:

https://warontherocks.com/2016/04/top-gun-at-30-a-retrospective-from-two-naval-aviators/
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Screwed over a lot of ROTC guys who were planning on being naval aviators...once they signed on the dotted line, the Navy knew they didn't have to offer flight school to keep 'em.
 
azblackbird said:
My biggest laugh is when they give a turbine a rotary engine sound. :rolleyes:
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Can't find a video but remember the jet in Airplane sounding like a prop plane?



ZAZ wanted the plane to be propellor driven, but Paramount wanted the plane to be a modern jet. The compromise was to use a modern jet for the plane, but all of the sounds were those of a propellor airplane.
 
azblackbird said:
What? You ain't heard of the new Mazda airplane engines? They were specifically designed for Hollywood. :p
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No, but I have heard of the LeRhone and other WWI era rotaries...check out the last scene in The Great Waldo Pepper when they're taxiing out to hear what they sound like. :cool:
 
BrianNC said:
Just about any plane scenes on TV normally have errors in them. I was just watching an episode of a series last Friday and in one scene on the way somewhere they are in a Gulfstream. On the way back, and you know it's supposed to be the same plane because the interior is identical, the exterior shot is a Learjet.That's a common one, mixing up exterior shots in the same show. Any time there are airplane scenes I always perk up because I know I'm probably about to catch an error.
Click to expand...

One of my favorite errors was in a show about DB Cooper. For you youngsters, he's the guy that was never caught after hijacking a 727 and jumping out the back. The show used a 727 for the exterior shots, however as I watched the show the cockpit looked amazingly familiar. I also noticed there were only two sets of controls/gauges. I finally realized it was a Casa 212 cockpit, which I had been flying for a couple years at the time.
 
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