Have you ever heard Concorde's sonic boom?

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I was watching a random YouTube video and the sonic boom was mentioned and the guy was saying that it couldn't possibly have been Concorde as they didn't go supersonic over land. Which is true, but they did speed up as soon as they were far enough from land for it to be a distant (and therefore quieter) boom. I used to hear it in my childhood when I was on holiday in Kerry. The video was specifically about a place in the west of Newfoundland so I think it's quite likely that they might have heard the boom there.

Anyway, it got me thinking that I'd never thought about how rare it might be to have heard a sonic boom. Where have other people heard it?

🙂

FWIW supersonic flight over the UK (and just offshore) by the military was a real "no no" until 9/11..that day changed the rules a little bit.

maybe i never heard the boom but you always knew it was a concorde because the sound was so different hence running into the garden.

Flew over daily at 6pm. Loved it. When working at T5 in the mid 90s the bottles on the shelves of the shop I worked in wobbled every time. And was once in the staff Car park at the end of the runway near Hatton Cross when Concorde took off. Had to block my ears and the car alarms went off. Miss those days

I did hear a sonic boom a few yrs on. It woke me up & it was in the news plus a thread on here so dc can still near non concorde ones.

hear!

It had, for want of a better expression, old style engines verses what became more widespread from the 70's onwards so yes, it was a different sound and certainly noisier on the approach than the more modern types.

Used to hear it a lot in Cork growing up.

@WhisperingAutistic - Fylde coast yes we head sonic booms , but possibly BAE aircraft also , & also London - it tended to be 10 pm - you could set your watch by it - possibly over London not a sonic boom but it had a distinctive sound.

To my shame I thought there was only one Concorde - did not realise there were many . But I was younger then 😊It was the most beautiful thing I think as an aircraft

Yes in the Isle of Wight - must have been about 1970. We were on holiday and my Dad reckoned it was a test flight over the Channel.

No I don't recall the boom - but in the 1980's I worked as a research scientist at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington just a few miles SE of Heathrow and on several occasions I saw and heard Concorde. I used to catch the coach in to work and it used to skirt Heathrow via a perimeter road and the 747's taking off were breathtaking - they seemed to move so slowly and were so low on take off - I remember that more.

I’m old enough to remember them trialling Concorde and they frequently emitted sonic booms while flying over land. It was always an exciting moment. Sad that Concorde has gone. There was nothing like it.

I also remember their last flight. I was on a train travelling from Bristol to London and saw the three Concordes in formation flying towards Heathrow for the last time. It felt quite emotional.

My mum said there’s a concorde in Barbados and the man at the exhibit said he can always tell the people who’ve been on it as they’re quiet and a bit reflective.
I remember you could stop by the fence at Heathrow and watch it take off and often grown men would have tears rolling down their cheeks, I guess just at the sheer unexpected beauty of it.

Nov 2019 DH and I (mercifully not our then newborn DS1) were woken in the middle of the night by the sonic boom of two fighter jets (I think they were scrambled to intercept some unwelcome foreign aircraft in our airspace somewhere). This was in North London. It was all over Twitter within minutes and on the news the next day.

Yes, we heard it daily in the South West. I think they increased speed as they reached the Atlantic.

I flew on Concorde to the Bay of Biscay and back (won a competition), and reaching Mach 1 was surprisingly undramatic. All that happened was the counter on the front bulkhead of the plane indicated we were flying faster than the speed of sound. The biggest noise was the cheer from the passengers (I can’t imagine this happened in the regular Heathrow to JFK flights).

I’ve also flown in a Tornado which was a lot more dramatic, but that’s because we were much closer to the ground, you were pulling ‘g’ and it was a lot bumpier. Plus, you could see much more too, which all gave a real sense of speed.

I used to live in Devon in the 90s and around 9pm every night we heard it as it flew over.

From the archives:

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1970/feb/17/concorde-aircraft-test-routes

We had relatives in the SW UK at the time of the overland trials ....One of them reckoned the booms were so loud they were eventually going to knock the house down, but another reckoned they were hardly noticeable. 🤔

You can have a "Concorde Experience" on one of the original Concordes that is parked up at Brooklands Museum.

https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/explore/heritage-and-collection/our-collection/bac-aerospatiale-concorde

It's a good trip - I was amazed at how tiny the cabin was.

Yes. It could be heard throughout the SW, particularly on summers evening.

My kids are plane mad (not a spelling mistake) and I’m taking them to this in the school holidays.

Yup. I flew on it once as a teen as well

Yes, used to hear when on holiday in Cornwall, used to make the windows rattle and would be quite scary if you didn't know what it was.

A relative was involved in developing Concorde at Farnborough in the 70s, and years later DH was working at British Aerospace in Bristol and saw it coming in to land on the last ever flight - people were in tears, even all these super practical engineers.

Back in the 90s I was just driving away from JFK airport in New York when Concorde appeared in the sky, and the cab driver was so excited, pointing at it saying 'look, look!' This veteran NYC cabbie and it still gave him a buzz to see it.

It was extraordinary how it caught the imagination of so many people, the vast majority of whom would never have had the chance to fly on it.

Grew up in Cornwall in the 80s - we could hear it daily, if I remember correctly. About 8 in the evening as it moved away from land and over the Atlantic..

I remember it well.

Used to hear it regularly when we lived in Jersey.

Yes, in Cornwall as a child. Always preceded by the pheasants clucking (or whatever noise they make) as they must have more acute hearing & sensed it first