Sound of turbojets and rockets

[chornedsnorkack]

How does the sound of a Concorde - 4 turbojets with reheat generating something like 70 tons thrust in total - compare with the sound of a shuttle - 5 rockets lifting a 2000 ton assembly vertically?

And what are the other loudest planes?

Boeing 707?

DC-8?

B-52?

[Ian L]

A Lightning at low level was LOUD I've still not got the stains out of my pants, and that was nearly 30 years ago.

[FlyerFoto]

Just wait until the Vulcan is flying - LOUD and AWESOME!!!!!

[chornedsnorkack]

Vulcan has the same Olympus engines as Concorde, but at less thrust, because Vulcan is overall as smaller plane.

What about the sound of Valkyrie?

[MAN777]

In all my years of spotting 3 LOUD incidents spring to mind.

1. TU ??(Backfire) bomber departing Farnborough

2. Mirage 4 bomber with burning JATO rockets departing Tiger meet at Cambrai France (1986 ish). I was there in a PR photographer role for the RAF and had full access, so decided to sit right on the edge of the runway at the rotation point. This caused much amusement to the resident air force staff, especially when I bottled out and hit the deck as this thing practically melted me !!

3 A Toronto bound chartered Concorde departing very heavy and low on runway 06 at Manchester, it set off hundreds of car and house alarms all over south Manchester, AWESOME.

[treadigraph]

Well having watched and listened to Concorde, Lightnigs, Vulcans, Shuttles and Coronados (!) I'll go with the Shuttle. And I was 20 mmiles down the coast as opposed to a few hundred yards away with the rest.

But then I have never heard a Saturn V launching...

[chornedsnorkack]

Yes, you can expect Tu-160 to be loud. After all, Tu-160 is the biggest bomber, and the biggest SST. Naturally, it needs to be loud, since unlike B-1, it does have Mach 2 capability.

[perkin]

Theres a video on flightlevel350.com (I think) of a Lancer taking off in the US somewhere which triggers assorted car alarms...very loud!

[henry crun]

I have read that a Saturn V at launch produced the loudest continuous man made noise ever, 185-190 db.

I would be surprised if any aircraft came within a bulls roar of that.

[blaggerman]

A shuttle launch is definitely the loudest thing I've heard (from Titusville, about 10 miles away). The launch itself is eerie as you watch the shuttle climb in complete silence, and it's well up in the sky by the time the sound of blast-off reaches you.

[DILLIGAFF]

I agree the shuttle is the loudest thing these days. I have seen it launch at night from Cocoa Beach (I think about six miles away) .Apart from turning night into day the sound seems to resonate through you, like standing at the end of Brize runway when a VC10 takes off but louder. Also I have seen it launch from Clearwater Beach which is about a hundred or more miles away. When people told me I would be able to see it I did not believe them, but you can, and this was in daylight. The rocket plume is so bright. Having watched aircraft of all sorts for 40 years (including many Lightning launches from Binbrook and SR71 takeoffs from Mildenhall which I always considered the most impressive) seeing a shuttle launch is amazing and I would recommend anybody who is out in the States when one is going up to try and get there to see it.
D

[Porrohman]

I remember watching a night time space shuttle launch being broadcast live on TV whilst staying in a hotel in Orlando. Just after launch, I looked out the hotel window and could clearly see the shuttle climbing into the sky, 45 or 50 miles away. About 5 minutes later (I didn't time it exactly) the noise reached me. It started very suddenly and it was quite loud, even at that distance. It was clearly audible for several minutes.

[The AvgasDinosaur]

Any one got links to sound clips of B-58 XB-70 SR-71 TU-160 Concord (spelling intentional) CV 990 etc etc
Be lucky
David

[Argonautical]

There have been several threads on the loudest aeroplane before on the aviation Usenet newsgroup and the consensus of opinion was that the loudest was the B-58 Hustler.