Bugger! just noticed that the Egyptair flash was yesterday and the reported bang was today. Please disregard my previous.

Since no one has answered BOAC's question STILL, I thought I'd give it a try...

None of these seem to fit, though.

I was starting to think there was no one out riding today but the BBC somehow managed to find a horse rider to interview. At least it seems that no one on the horse or the horse itself was injured despite the scale of the noise viz thunder. Hope no parrots were injured!

Compo
 

It was so scary I feared for the world when I heard it; is there a compensation hotline number??

Yours traumatised of Wyton

NM

I don't understand.....in the days of Phantoms at Yeovilton we had booms nearly every day and no-one complained, and no-one suffered broken windows

What is it with these broken windows ?

I can still remember sitting in Cafes / Restaurants in France
30 - 40 years ago, nearly every lunchtime the booms came
across the village, windows shook a little but nothing major.

Are they just compo claims or do some windows shatter ?

MythBusters (2009 season) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"A supersonic jet can break any kind of glass by the sonic boom it generates"

Busted

Jamie set up a test area filled with various glass items and products while Adam performed a flyby in an F/A-18 going supersonic. However, at flybys of 8,000, 2,000, and 500 feet (2,400, 610, and 150 m), the jet failed to break any of the glass. They then performed a series of low altitude flybys at 200 feet (61 m), but only managed to break a single window. Since the majority of the glass was still intact, the MythBusters declared the myth busted.




Good episode if you can get your hands on it, BTW :ok:

"nearly every lunchtime the booms came"

Concorde!
You could almost set your time by them as they lit up, the BA ones as they went down the Bristol Channel.
Best heard from the end of the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland - the English and French ones close together around 2:30pm

Mythbusters is not particularly scientifically rigorous.

Thanks for the answers.


Milo
Are you sure that it was only Concorde ?
I wasn't on the coast of France, well inland
and the Bristol channel is a long way from there.

I also think someone mentioned Military aircraft ?


Question for those who might know.

What is the furthest a sonic boom can be heard from say,
a jet at 20,000 feet ? (or 10,000, you pick the height).

500N

You're forgetting the French Concorde.....they lit up over the English Channel or Biscay

Milo

No, I understood that we were talking two different planes
in two locations, I still think I was one hell of a long way
from the English Channel.

I am currently looking to see where but that is why I asked
the question of how far can a Sonic boom be heard ?

just found this - seems to be the defining document
http://aero.stanford.edu/Reports/MartinFinalThesis.pdf

"A boom carpet is the area on the ground where the aircraft’s sonic boom can be
heard (Figure 1.3). It is approximately 1 mile wide per 1000 ft altitude. Since the
disturbance to the air is greatest in the lift direction, the sonic boom is loudest directly
under the flight path. Moving sideways across the boom carpet, the sonic boom reduces
because of the greater distance traveled and lesser air disturbance in that direction. The
boom carpet has finite width because at some point the sonic boom rays do not reach the
ground due to refraction."

This survey also has some interesting info regarding old tests
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/684806.pdf

Good stuff.

I was at "Montberthault", half way in a straight line between
Paris and Geneva.

I just had a look, quite a few Air Bases around the place
- within a 100km.

Maybe it was a designated flying area for the air force ?

Apologies for the thread drift but in the good olde days of Concorde, here in sunny Torquay, South Devon we would regularly experience the effects of Concorde's sonic boom. Once in the morning and one more in the late evening. The boom was very, very muffled but the windows vibrating or rattling was more noticeable.

Certainly not a big issue but one day whilst out in the English Channel I swear I nearly gave birth as an aircraft went through the sound barrier directly above where I was fishing. I thought I had mistakenly parked directly under a warship firing its main gun!! The noise was more like an explosion as opposed to an insignificant, mild boom :sad:;)

If I had have given birth, then I would definitely have sued someone!! :ok::*

Did not a certain Lightning pilot (AVM and subsequently father of another Lightning jock) break a few windows at Barkston Heath with a Mach1 (or nearly) low pass

I knew a Lightning Pilot who dropped a boom on a Russian Trawler in the Med ... well it was a listening post after all :E

One once had ones sails rattled by a Froggy Concorde heading for South America.

We were sailing between the Solent and Brest (or possibly vice versa) at the time.

Seeing a French ac going that fast in a southwesterly direction, one could only assume some sort of attack from the northeast .......;););)

Talking about sonic booms and Lightnings, I believe Jimmy Dell once shattered the windows of the terminal building (or possibly the control tower) in a low and fast fly past in front of one of the Saudi princes and senior military officers (possibly Riyadh?)

I believe that this impressed the watching crowd so much, they decided to order a number of EE's finest for their air force.

Sorry the details are a little sketchy, but this was a story told by AVM Peter Collins/Air Cdre John Spencer at the 'Jimmy Dell day' at Bruntingthorpe some years ago.

To be fair Mythbusters did report breakage on the lowest altitude passes. Their basic point that breakage is unlikely from passes at several thousand feet is reasonable.