Does anyone know what went supwrsonic over London earlier, and any knowledge as to what’s up?

Apparently a Typhoon was sent out to intercept a private plane that wasn’t responding to calls. Made the windows shake up here in Cambridge!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-55636583

Caught the sonic boom on my ring camera!#sonicboom pic.twitter.com/Z8IoF5A7ki

— Javelin Sam (@javelinsam) January 12, 2021

Thought it might have been my wife when she got home from work and <span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>discovered I’d forgotten to get the pork chops out of the freezer for tea tonight…</span>

Typhoon on a QRA after this wasn’t responding…

Awesome paint job!

90s tribal tattoo.
Or Dan carter’s personal jet

Was it RAF Luton checking that ZebraPlane was on an essential journey?

Photo of the Day: A380 fighter jet on #COVID19 patrol over Henley-on-Thames looks for people more than 5 miles from their homes as part of Operation #Covid19UK

Photographed from a Canberra #AvGeek pic.twitter.com/LEslOKg9bB

— RAF_Luton (@RAF_Luton) January 12, 2021

😆

That Ring thing up there caught a Tie Fighter. Mint!

German, eh… 😉

It was the needle on the Irony Meter when it was revealed we can no longer export a ham sandwich to Europe

It loosened my bowls as I was out in the street as it went over me in North cambs, looked up and could see it miles further on. I thought part of the new town had exploded!

Best reaction…

Managed to capture the Cambridge sonic boom (and my deer in the headlights reaction) live on video pic.twitter.com/ianzTpALWQ

— Heather Eastlake (@HeatherEastlake) January 12, 2021

Was outside the house walking the dogs last week and a pair of Typhoons came down the glen at tree height – watched them head down into Glen Livet below the tops of the hills. 500 ft my arse!

watched them head down into Glen Livet below the tops of the hills. 500 ft my arse!

250ft is standard along specified low flying corridors and there’s a couple of places where 100ft is allowed.

I remember riding up Garburn Pass over towards Kentmere and 2 Typhoons came up the valley a fraction below us – the Kirkstone Pass valley is a set low flying route.

In the seventies, in Bristol, used to happen a lot with Concorde being built and tested there. Was even more scary as we had all been drilled in ‘Protect and Survive’ Quick, fill the bath with water and hide under a door.

250ft is standard along specified low flying corridors and there’s a couple of places where 100ft is allowed.

I’ve seen two A10’s clear this by not a lot…and the boats we were in by even less…

The same week we had a couple of Tornado’s playing with each other – one passed over my group of kids just about on the summit of Merrick, inverted and cornering with a waving crew member at what felt like not a lot above head height. It was a common manoeuvre, just this time daft low.

A couple of years later I watched Puma’s head up the lawn below me from our high ropes course in the trees here. They had a long ‘corridor’ along an escarpment that ended in outdoor centre building. Again we had seen them there before, this was a pair of them dafty low and slow…

I was always told that bits of Galloway were allowed lower, and a couple of excercises clearly made good use.

I’ve seen two A10’s clear this by not a lot…and the boats we were in by even less…

As a kid, I remember A10s do practice runs on traffic on the A15 🙈

Were the airforce getting a bit overzealous with border control?

I heard that plane go over here in Munich! Was on the phone to my sister in Essex earlier today when suddenly there was a massive boom.

She said it shook the house. The kids came running into the house.

Told you it was RAF Luton on the case

BREAKING: We can confirm the loud noise heard over the UK today was a Eurovision Typhoon fighter jet from the Fast Air Response Team based at #RAFLuton that was scrambled after reports of a man on a motorbike making a non-essential journey on the A40 in Whitechapel #Covid19UK pic.twitter.com/FoFAkL7Nol

— RAF_Luton (@RAF_Luton) January 12, 2021

Did someone say low flying?

Not sure if it’s in this short one or the long one, but this guy talks about the Buccaneer having to climb to 20ft as the dust clouds made then too visible at 10ft…

Eurovision Typhoon fighter jet from the Fast Air Response Team

Sonic Boom Bang a Bang?

Best reaction…

Who films themselves getting a spare tyre out of the boot?

Who films themselves getting a spare tyre out of the boot?

I thought that, on the twitter thread though her next post is a demo of the exercise she was filming. That doesn;t look particularly great either, mind

I’m old enough to have watched the Concorde flying over the Bristol Channel on it’s way to America and I heard the ‘sonic boom’ several times…

…but it was a much more subtle double ‘thud’ rather than a single ‘bang’ like those videos.

Does the aircraft design influence the kind of ‘sonic boom’ it creates?

Was the design of Concorde responsible for the double ‘thud’?

I’m old enough to have watched the Concorde flying over the Bristol Channel on it’s way to America and I heard the ‘sonic boom’ several times…

I grew up in North Devon and heard it every day. When the sky was clear you could make out the unmistakable shape of Concorde.

Was the design of Concorde responsible for the double ‘thud’?

Twice the speed of sound, innit. Two bangs. 😉

I grew up in North Devon and heard it every day. When the sky was clear you could make out the unmistakable shape of Concorde.

Yeah, Swansea here. There was a bit of a fuss about what was causing the mysterious booming noise at the same time of the day (night iirc?) until the local paper and news revealed the answer. (Edit : from memory it was about 10pm, same time as the ITN news. I may be wrong though.)

Was outside the house walking the dogs last week and a pair of Typhoons came down the glen at tree height – watched them head down into Glen Livet below the tops of the hills. 500 ft my arse!

I was riding along a low hill a couple of years ago, on the same day as the local airshow, and watched a Spitfire and Hurricane fly up the valley at the same height as me, a few hundred metres away. Slow and close enough to wave hello to the plots! 😀

Was the design of Concorde responsible for the double ‘thud’?

Most things that fly faster than the speed of sound create two sonic booms. It’s just that they’re usually so close together that they sound like just one. The first one is created at the front of the plane, where the nose presses on the air it runs into. The second is made at the rear, where the tail leaves an empty space behind it. At each end, the air pressure is strongly changed by the plane, creating sound waves.

The waves coming from the nose and tail are like two cones, separated by the length of the plane. The time between when you hear each wave is the time it takes for the plane to fly its own length. Since planes are fairly small, that time is short and your mind treats the double wave as a single sound. Concorde a lot bigger, so you can hear the double wave. The SR-71 Blackbird was well-known for a double sonic boom as well.

Does the aircraft design influence the kind of ‘sonic boom’ it creates?

Yes, and a lot of research is going into reducing this nuisance.

https://www.nasa.gov/aero/sonic_boom_takes_shape.html

but it was a much more subtle double ‘thud’ rather than a single ‘bang’ like those videos.

I think there’s a boom when they break the sound barrier which is the bang – that jet would have been accelerating through it – but there’s also a rolling rumble which passes across the ground once it’s flying supersonically. Is that right?

Thank you all for the explanation – makes sense now.

I was working on Exmoor at a friends farm and I saw Concorde several times.

We also used to see planes from RAF Chivenor – they used to get up to all sorts of low flying malarchy during the 1980’s.

molgrips

I think there’s a boom when they break the sound barrier which is the bang – that jet would have been accelerating through it – but there’s also a rolling rumble which passes across the ground once it’s flying supersonically. Is that right?

No, I don’t think that’s right. My understanding is that the boom travels with the aircraft; it’s not a one-off event as the plane ‘breaks through the sound barrier’…..that’s really the wrong phrasing for a complicated phenomenon.

Think of it as a cone shaped sound wave generated by the aircraft (well, two as mentioned above at the front and rear of the plane). You hear it as a boom as that sound wave passes your location.
Anyone in the path of the shock wave will hear the ‘sonic boom’ just not at the same time.

UK Pensioner slows down Concorde

I thought I vaguely recalled the above. Turns out its true.

Does the aircraft design influence the kind of ‘sonic boom’ it creates?

Was the design of Concorde responsible for the double ‘thud’?

I’d imagine the density of the Air the plane is in has an effect too? So concord at higher altitude possibly accelerating at a slower rate(?) makes for a ‘shallower’ thud than a typhoon at lower altitude in denser air giving it more beans?

Experts?