Sound Barrier Over London By A Lightning
 

I remember either in the late 1960s or early 1970s that a Lightning made 3 passes over London breaking the sound barrier each time.
I can still remember hearing the sonic booms, I think the 3 passes were made over the course of a week.
This was the last time I heard the sound barrier broke.

Does anyone know the actual dates and why it was doing it.

Thanks.
Peter.

It was research for the Concorde programme (RIP) to establish whether the unwashed general public would tolerate unexpected supersonic booms over land. Around 1967/68?

They didn't!

But perhaps little worse than the drum and bass noise emanting from rat boy Max Power Novas and Corsas these days?

From http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/mileston...ivil/1967.html :

The one sonic boom that will stuck in my memory was produced by a Mig, flying low over the city in 1991. An unexpected loud explosion sound, not nice.

I went to school in central London, and can remember hearing one of these flights. Was unimpressed by the sound....only disturbance was to a flock of pigeons which seemed to all get airborne a fraction of a second before the bang.

I was more impressed by the noise of the Hunter which someone flew under Tower Bridge in 1968 and which went right past my school a few seconds later.

I went to school in Surrey, not too far from Farnborough, and well remember the 2 x Royal Navy Phantoms that went supersonic at quite low level!! They caused quite a reaction to those who hadn't been lucky enough to see them flash across in the near distance in a strange silence before the mini explosions that followed them reached us!

Whetted my appetite for the public days!

I dropped a boom overland once - in the middle of the night as well....

But as it was over Norfolk, presumably the Cyclopian swamp dwellers never noticed - because no-one ever complained!

BEagle.

What aircraft were you flying when you went supersonic.

Am I right in thinking that the Lightning tests over London were the last offically permitted breaking of the sound barried over UK Soil.

One things for sure, you don't get anything like it at airshows today, display pilots don't even know what a fast pass is, they reel about the sky and that's about it.
Even back in the 70s and 80s when the sound barrier was not allowed to be broken you used to get fighters at airshows doing a low fast pass very near the speed of sound, so fast that you could not hear them coming, and you did not hear them until they had gone past, today there is nothing like that.

The glory days of airshows have gone forever, never to be replaced.

Peter.

A Phantom.

Got very close to going supersonic in a Vulcan once after screwing up a rapid descent..... Saw an indicated M 0.97-ish!

PB,

Agreed in general. The RAF F3 still does it for me at LL (low and fast at the end of it's display, washed off with a zoom upwards) but very few others.

Last real speed merchants I remember were the GAF "Vikings" (2 F104's) - did a lot of shows in the UK in the 80's.

I can remember early test flying of Concorde which including supersonic runs down the west coast and it definitely flew supersonic over the west of Scotland as I can vividly remember the sound even today. So those Lightning flights were not the last official supersonic flights over land.

Heard many Concorde booms later along the South Coast when, if weather conditions were right, booms from Air France flights over the Channel would hit the coast. Used to rattle the windows quite a bit!

Hmmmm - remember a "double bang" whilst on the beach at Sennen Cove in 1976 - thought at the time (not bad for a twelve year old!) that it might have been a Concorde - perhaps indeed it was.

Later that same year, Biggin Hill Battle of Britain day, first time I can recall seeing a Lightning in the air: it passed my vantage point around the same time as the sound!

From the RAF Merryfield "At Home" day souvenir programme of 18 September 1954 (Price 1/- !!):

"Flying Programme. It is hoped that the Flying Display will include the following:-

(etc etc)

Breaking the sound barrier by a Sabre of Fighter Command

(etc etc)"

Them were't days - and there were 16 different types of RAF aeroplanes in the static aircraft display!

Was sailing back from Cherbourg to the Solent one summer's day in (IIRC) the late 80s.

Gin clear day and saw Concorde (Air France to South America??) going like stink NE to SW. Got the boom, which also ruffled our (quite large) sails more than somewhat. Fan-bl%%dy-tastic! :D

Shame that'll never happen again.....:( :(:

Interesting story on teletext tonight.

It says a Eurofighter Typhoon went supersonic and broke the sound barrier while on a test flight over North Wales, it also said people were phoning the emergency services saying there was an earthquake when they heard the boom !!!!!!!

So it seems that we have not finished breaking the sound barrier over the UK yet, even if it was not offical, or maybe it was !!!.

Well done that pilot.

Peter.

Hear Hear Peter - If you'll pardon the cringe-worthy pun! :p

Hear, hear is appropriate, treadigraph - it happened twice, about five minutes apart!

Heard both quite clearly in Lytham, near Blackpool, and didn't realise what it was. It sounded like a deep rumble for three or four seconds followed by a thud. Not what I would I expect to hear of a sonic boom (more like a double thud followed by engine noise). I thought my neighbour was dragging a heavy bit of furniture across a wooden floor and then dropping it. Couldn't think why he did it twice!

Still, as PB says, well done to the pilot. Nice to hear it being used in the manner intended!

GG

Well Chaps, what say we nominate the Typhoon pilot to be the RAF Display pilot, that way we might get a few fast passes near the speed of sound at airshows, just like it used to be in the old days.

I think a lot of jet jockeys could learn from this chap, fighters are built for speed, so lets see it :ok:

Peter.

We have friends who live right on the clifftops at Hartland Point in North Devon. When Concorde was in service, it used to pass right over their house inbound from the States.
About 20.10hrs., sitting in the garden on a fine summer evening, the sonic shock used to reach us first, in any of several forms, ranging from nothing more than all the wildfowl around suddenly having a squawk and a little flutter, to a sharp "crack" like a rifle being fired, to the full blown resonating "Booom" coming sweeping off the sea!
Followed, within a couple of minutes, by the wonderful sight of a contrail suddenly starting very high up, visibly descending quite steeply, and then starting to level off a little as it came over over land, going eastwards toward London.
Unfortunately, never to be repeated. :(

I don't agree that airshows aren't as good as they used be. Having a supersonic Lightning fly past was certainly a blast but they didn't really do much else as you couldn't see them half the time. Last year at Berlin we were treated to the Typhoon doing the most amazing things - and almost staying within the airfiled boundary as well! Fantastic and to think the pilot actually gets paid for doing it!

Other aircraft included a Fokker tri-wing and other WW1 vintage machines, a pair of Mustangs letting Berlin hear the roar of the Merlin once again, a Catalina, Lufthansa's wonderful Junkers Ju52 - they were doing joy-rides too. Oh I could go on, but I don't remember a boyhood airshow that could touch it.

Apart from the time I got to sit in a Meteor cockpit at Thornaby in 1956 that is...

Blacksheep.

I respect your opinion on airshows but I can't agree with it.

Airshows now are no where near as exciting as they used to be.
Apart from the actual flying that I don't think is as good we also hardly have any RAF Airshows, we don't even have an offical RAF Battle of Britain airshow in England anymore, its a sad state of affairs.

Apart from the RAF Stations that used to hold airshows ( not just BoB ones ) in the 60s 70s and 80s we also had the American bases having airshows like Upper Heyford, Weathersfield, Alconbury and even Mildenhall, these airshows are all now gone.
There is no choise now as there are hardly any military airshows in England anymore.
I have a paper somewhere saying that 55 RAF Stations are open today for the Battle of Britain, now zero.

As to airshows not being as exciting as they used to be, I don't think todays shows come anywhere near the old ones.
Today we have 9 Hawks as the RAF Display team, yes they are good but they are 9 trainers, in the 60s we had 9 Lightnings, and teams with 5 Sea Vixens, 22 Black Hunters looping the loop, scrambles of Vulcans etc, even back in the 80s there was a scramble of VC-10s at the last ever Brize Norton airshow and a scramble of 8 F-111s at Upper Heyford, today you would be lucky to get 1 F-16 and 1 Tornado at an airshow and in between them you will get a couple of girls standing on a wing and some bloke with geese flying beside him, hardly show stopping numbers.

We need to have the Vulcan flying again and be allowed to have Lightnings flying in this country again and aircraft like the Shackleton to remind us how good airshows used to be.

Peter.