Love waking up to Sonic Booms.

Okay I know there's a lot of people from California on here, so I doubt I'm the only one who heard this on Sunday morning at about 8am, hell I thought a damn car hit the house it was so loud and the house rattled and everything, had me tripped out haha.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, a meteor about the size of a minivan broke through the sound barrier over California, People from Modesto-Tahoe, and even in to Reno NV heard it.
http://www.ivpressonline.com/ktxl-sonic-boom-from-meteor-wakes-region-20120422,0,5827061.story
 
Timoyz and I were riding out in barstow when i shit you not i thought we maybe wondered into the wrong area and were getting bombed. 3 loud sonic booms and we both about shit ourselves. Later on in the day i was on top of a hill and caught it on video. Ill upload it.
 
Timoyz and I were riding out in barstow when i shit you not i thought we maybe wondered into the wrong area and were getting bombed. 3 loud sonic booms and we both about shit ourselves. Later on in the day i was on top of a hill and caught it on video. Ill upload it.

When I first started going out to the desert nearly 30 years ago, sonic booms were common even on the weekends. Over time the weekend booming dropped off and now it's not very common even on the weekdays.
 
When I first started going out to the desert nearly 30 years ago, sonic booms were common even on the weekends. Over time the weekend booming dropped off and now it's not very common even on the weekdays.
we heard a few of them that day... it was neat for sure :)

do you know why you hear 3 booms tho?
 

SRAD97750

Moderator
Staff member
"All aircraft produce two booms one from the nose and one from the tail. As aircraft length is short, the distance between two releasing points of shock waves are smaller so the booms are generally heard as one. As shock waves spread across the landscape like a cone becoming larger and larger from the release point towards the rear, sonic booms are continuously created along the flight path. If you continued to move with the plane at the same supersonic speed you would hear continuous booms. Otherwise, you hear the booms only when the plane is above you.
"​

"Several smaller shock waves can, and usually do, form at other points on the aircraft, primarily any convex points or curves, the leading wing edge and especially the inlet to engines. These secondary shockwaves are caused by the air being forced to turn around these convex points, which generates a shock wave in supersonic flow"

There is no "boom," there is only a constant sound that you happen to hear for a split second.
So the sound, of the aircraft "ripping" through the piled up air molecules, is constant. The pilots never hear the sonic boom though, they are ahead of the sound by the time the air "rips." So if you followed the aircraft you would hear it constantly.
 
thats crazy.... i would imagine if you were behind it you would be so fucked... besides the obvious burnt to a crisp... def for sure prolly and possible some internal damage from the vibration?
 

SRAD97750

Moderator
Staff member
"The strongest sonic boom ever recorded was 7,000 Pa (144 pounds per square foot) and it did not cause injury to the researchers who were exposed to it. The boom was produced by a F-4 flying just above the speed of sound at an altitude of 100 feet (30 m). In recent tests, the maximum boom measured during more realistic flight conditions was 1,010 Pa (21 pounds per square foot). There is a probability that some damage — shattered glass for example — will result from a sonic boom. Buildings in good repair should suffer no damage by pressures of 11 pounds per square foot or less. And, typically, community exposure to sonic boom is below two pounds per square foot. Ground motion resulting from sonic boom is rare and is well below structural damage thresholds accepted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines and other agencies."
 
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