Posted on 12/22/2021 3:30:54 PM PST by Retain Mike
Master Sergeant Steven Conklin, spokesman for the 142nd Wing, said the military is authorized to fly supersonic 15 miles beyond the coastline, but pilots should not have the nose of the jet pointed toward the coast.
The 142nd Wing in a Facebook post apologized for causing concern among coastal residents.
"During this training, we inadvertently went supersonic, and caused a sonic boom while pointed slightly toward the coastline while greater than 15 miles away from land," the 142nd Wing posted on Facebook. "We understand that this caused concern from our coastal residents and for that we sincerely apologize."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Spent 68-72 in USAF as Security Policeman. First one I saw was in Kunsan AB, ROK. Had the priviledge of watching the Thunderbirds practice in them in Nov. and Dec.1970 from the flight line at Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, NV. Big, heavy, loud and magnificently menacing as JP4 fumes belched out the back and the sound tickled your eardrums. Awe and pride inspiring! Years later I went to a Thunderbirds show at Beale and they had switched to F-16’s. More nimble but less thunder in those birds.
In 1988, I was on a drilling project in one of the supersonic flight areas in Nevada, east of Fallon. The lads used to come over the rig at less than 200 feet. If you didn’t see them coming, the first you knew about it was the sonic boom. Don’t know how it didn’t break windows in the trucks.
I was Navy and one of my regrets is never seeing the Blue Angels perform when they flew the Phantom.
That F-15 is not from Nellis, it’s from RAF Lakenheath England, unless it’s TDY or something.
I grew up hearing them quiet often in NM
We used to call them Thunder Hogs because they were so loud and the engines poured black smoke.
Blue Angel’s were some bad hombres! They would take off all together in formation. Never understood how their slot pilot could see through all of that exhaust!! Saw them a few years back in their F-18 Super Hornets in San Francisco. They opened with a low level pass at speed from behind us and scared the bejesus out of everyone.
The apology was on a local FB page. The Karens got laughed down pretty hard.
I used to sit at the end of the runway at Homestead and watch them come and go.
I spent some time with the IDF in 1999 - F-4s used the runway right behind the hangar I worked in. Every morning we'd take coffee break and watch them take off for patrols (or bombing runs).
A friend of mine drove a yellow VW beetle when we were at HAFB. He’d drive out and park on the service road behind where the jets took off. They’d come right over the top of us when landing. The tower was pretty close. I don’t know why they didn’t come out and run us off.
I wonder how he dealt with the turbulence? That broken up air stream has got to be like being hit in your car by a bucket of rocks.
So they should be, but I doubt it will prompt any of them to go out and buy big girl panties.
One guy said a sonic boom once killed his wife’s baby chicks.
He must have lagged behind a bit and caught up later. As you say, turbulence can cause flame outs.
Convair B-36 Peacemaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36_Peacemaker Jimmy Stewart and the B-36
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=b36+jimmy+stewart+movie&view=detail&mid=A83F4BC6D4C07ED86955A83F4BC6D4C07ED86955&FORM=VIRE
Thanks for sharing this entertaining email.
Brings back memories of when I was a kid in the early 1950's in Southwest Iowa farmland.
We lived about 55 +/-- miles just east of Offutt Airforce base. This when the Military Icon General Curtis Le May was still in charge of the strategic Air Command at that base. Le May was a D. Trump, no-nonsense type of Leader, and even us grade school kids knew who he was.
We often would hear sonic booms, which really was not that long after Yeager broke the barrier.
The aircraft that impressed me more than any other: Those gigantic lumbering B -36's. When the jet fighters from, that base broke the sound barrier, those old double hung house windows would rattle like during a thunder-storm, but you could hear the drone of those eight engines bombers many minutes before they became visible. Yes, there was so much vibration in the air generated from those massive engines (40,0000 horsepower) that those same old windows would vibrate like a tuning fork.
I had to just look the details about them up on Internet: When the B - 52s started flying, they would sometimes be so high in the air, we could sometimes find it hard to see them, but they did leave contrails -- but I don't recall anything like that from those lovely old B-36s.
those planes were spoofed by the number of engines as "six burning and four turning.". I don]t recall ever seeing the jet assist engines operational when they passed so very high overhead, but they were visible adjacent to those big pushe-prop engines. They say the B36 had longer flight range without re-fuel than even the B-52,
When I still worked for the county, I was driving county car on London Road south of Cottage Grove == three jet fighters, (Air Nat Guard came low level over Cottage Grove Res. and did a simulated strafing run parallel over the dam. Neat to see, and boy it did not take them long to do a hit and run simulation.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
My father flew in B36s when he was in SAC. I was too young to remember much about them, but my mom said each plane sounded like a convoy of 18 wheelers.
Didn’t the B-36 have pusher props on the trailing edge of the wing? I remember seeing cargo planes with rocket motors on the lower rear fuselage to help them take off under load especially with short runways. They called them JATO, jet assisted take off. But they looked and performed like rockets which give more thrust than jets.
Yes, they had pusher props. You can see in the Jimmy Stewart video they light off the four jets as well as the props for takeoff,
Just the sound of freedom, baby!
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