Sonic boom over the UK

[J G 927]

Read all about it here....

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36188979

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Hmmm...wonder if sonic booms would break the windows of the green glass skyscrapers being built all over San Francisco?

 

Just thinking that would make a pretty dramatic scene in a movie:

Tom Cruise and Wingman scrambling out of Beale AFB to intercept an unresponsive Chinese airliner heading into the bay area.

They accelerate at full afterburner out of Beale rapidly covering the distance between...however in their zeal to protect the city...by hitting Mach 1 right before passing over S.F. they succeed in causing more damage to the city than a bomb or crashed airplane ever could . Slow motion scenes of green glass 'waterfalls' showering from dozens of suddenly shattered towers. The airliner turns out to be just a couple pilots asleep while autopiloting...doh.

 

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Many years ago whilst on the SS Sivand, (a 220'000 ton tanker), we were coming north across the Bay of Bay when one of Air Frances Concordes flew directly over us at high altitude. The bang not only shook the ship but part of the heavily corroded funnel stack cracked and fell off! Luckily there was no-one on the deck below at the time.  A message was hurriedly sent to BP in London and once we got to Rotterdam a swarm of  dockyard engineers came aboard and repaired our funnel. All we saw of the aircraft was the familiar shape at the head of the fast moving vapour trail. However the guys on the bridge at the time were using high powered binoculars and were able to get a good view of the aircraft.

[J G 927]

I have managed to go more than half a century without ever hearing a sonic boom.

 

It is on my bucket list, but in the UK they are rare as hens teeth. Special permission has to be given for fast jets to break the sound barrier in UK air space, so it dosent happen much.  If it does, then the powers that be must have a very good cause to get an aircraft up close to a target at that speed. 

 

With Russia stepping up their Bear incursions into UK airspace, fast intercepts are starting to happen more often, so there is hope for me and my bucket list yet.

[allardjd 1,853]

As a boy, delivering newspapers, I heard sonic booms almost every weekday afternoon.  At the time USAF B-58 Hustlers out of Bunker Hill AFB in Indiana (later Grissom AFB - later yet Grissom Joint ARB) would routinely go supersonic in a MOA out over the middle of Lake Michigan.  I think the MOA was over 200 NM long and they had plenty of room to play at high speeds.  It sounded like Freedom.

 

John

[hifly 925]

A sonic boom must be one of my first ever memories, I was still in a pram! Ma had left me outside a shop in the pram, it was considered ok in those days to do so. On hearing the boom I was terrified and screamed so loud mum came out of the shop. Thereafter, all through childhood I was scared of thunder. Of course now I love a good thunderstorm.