Platform 6 Posted June 17, 2013 Author Share Posted June 17, 2013 Whilst agreeing with many comments from fellow grumpies about the state of modern Britain, it might be worth considering why this sonic boom happened. Because nowadays the RAF avoid making sonic booms over land, it might suggest that when they do they are doing something for real even if, as in this case, it is a false alarm. Nick Good point Nick. As noted before, real people tend not to panic but 'just get on with it'. Probably just the media types trying to perpetuate their jobs by creating drama where there is little. Apologies to Kate Adie if she's reading Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZiderHead Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 I see the Beeb quote the speed of sound as 768MPH, so the jet was flying at sea-level was it? I would just love to see a Typhie or even better a Tonka doing mach 1+ at sea level. Dont think my ears would thank me though ... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gloria Sass Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 You can see why they used Woomera for things like this; some of mum's schoolfriends worked there, and claimed it was 100 miles to the next settlement. Did you ever hear ('feel' would be closer to it) the Vulcan Olympus test bed? I worked somewhere near the end of the runway at Filton in 1976/7, and would spend an hour putting chunks of metal back on the shelves after each time it flew over. have never been that lucky to be near an olympus test bed. pound for pound, including air shows at north weald, a couple of air base trips courtesy of the ATC, the best sounds of them all were the 37s and 47s on the tilbury loop, get a station ticket(half the time we would be let off :-) ) and be only a few feet away when they thumped past, sweet music Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
45059 Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 I would just love to see a Typhie or even better a Tonka doing mach 1+ at sea level. Dont think my ears would thank me though ... A Lightning on full re-heat, on a ground run, or even static... English Electric thrash heaven (courtesy of a pair of RR Avons). Failing that I'd love to see a Mig 25 with it's twin Turmansky's open up..! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZiderHead Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 ooooh yes EE did make some excellent sounding machines. I went to Hendon recently and was surprised to find myself spending more time admiring the Lightning than anything else, and there is some serious competition for your attention there ... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PhilJ W Posted June 18, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 18, 2013 Shoeburyness is only a few miles down the line from me so I am used to the odd bang. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 Like a Russain Tupolov TU-95 "bear" bomber having another sniff round the east coast? Thats quite scary ---well it is if you live there I guess.... I think it was an aircraft inbound to Heathrow that NATS had lost contact with. Ever since 9/11 they get concerned about such things. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 A BBC News website story about a sonic boom being heard across 3 counties was the most read story for some of yesterday. Have we become a nation so in fear that a 'bit-of-a-bang' is front-page news? Why is it so surprising that people who have never heard a sonic boom (due to decades of regulations to avoid the property damage and disruption caused by skylarking fly-boy behaviour) would call the police? Were people calmed by the BBC's last word "The BBC understands the incident was not terror-related"? Phew! The "incident" referred to in the last sentence was: "Jets from RAF Coningsby were scrambled last month to escort a passenger plane over the UK. The airliner from Pakistan, heading to Manchester, was diverted to Stansted and two men on board arrested by Essex Police. The article in question was poorly written. It conflates at least two or three incidents: 1. the sonic boom, no doubt (caused by an airforce pilot skylarking, or scrambling to intercept an airliner?), and scrambling RAF jets to intercept airliners (which cannot create sonic booms) including 2. one from the US which lost contact with air traffic control and 3. another from Pakistan where passengers were arrested. What I didn't see is how this article gets construed into an illustration of a culture of fear. EDITED - "no doubt" is an unfair comment Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 It's not just the UK. I never cease to be amazed at just how many people live in a state of generalised fear about all sorts of things. Not only that, but a large proportion of them seem to seek out new things to be afraid of, suggesting that they find fear to be a voluntary and desirable state. That is not to say that there are not a great many frightening things in the world but the chances of most of them significantly affecting the average citizen of a relatively prosperous and peaceful western country are far too small to lose sleep over. It is exactly because of western prosperity that politicians inculcate a culture of fear. When things are good, the way to motivate people is to frighten them by a message that everything will be taken from them. As examples, I give you: McCarthyism, (looking for Commies under the mattresses in the most powerful country in the world) The space race (all started by a radio transmitter the size of a beach ball in 1957) The War on Terror (and it's attendant warrantless wire tapping, communications data mining and robotic death from the sky, all taking on an increasingly Orwellian "we are at war with Eurasia, we have always been at war with Eurasia" tone) The White Australia Policy (and it's natural descendant - the fear of boat people) We don't talk politics here, so I won't extrapolate, but there's a difference between people experiencing something for the first time - like a sonic boom or the US east coast earthquake of 2011 - and then being surprised, compared with a deliberate culture of fear. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platform 6 Posted June 18, 2013 Author Share Posted June 18, 2013 Why is it so surprising that people who have never heard a sonic boom (due to decades of regulations to avoid the property damage and disruption caused by skylarking fly-boy behaviour) would call the police? Michael, I didn't realise sonic booms were so rare these days. I accept people with no experience of 'booms' would wonder what it was - but the Police Inspector seemed to reel off a complete plethora of all and sundry who had called - I thought I was reading 'The Weekly News' (Granny-safe sensationalism for the uninitiated). Obviously a whole lot of these people who were assaulted by the boom were frightened - they called the Police! I'd say that you could argue that there is a culture of fear considering that combined with the popularity of the story on the BBC News website. .... the sonic boom, no doubt caused by an airforce pilot skylarking ... I fail to see how you came to this conclusion. Maybe his orders were to get somewhere ASAP - that's not skylarking is it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 Maybe his orders were to get somewhere ASAP - that's not skylarking is it? The BBC report was unclear to me. If the sonic boom in Cambridgeshire, Essex and Hertfordshire was in fact related to scrambling a Typhoon jet from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire to intercept a Heathrow-bound airliner from the US, then no, not skylarking at all. (I'll edit my earlier post, because you make a good point there.) One wonders why supersonic flight is required to intercept an inbound airliner, but we don't (and don't need to know) the operational details. The fact that a Typhoon was scrambled to intercept an airliner is more indicative of a governmental culture of fear than people who didn't know what a sonic boom sounds like making calls to the police. There was a related story linked on the BBC where an F15 from RAF Lakenheath created a sonic boom over Norfolk on April 17. Does the RAF fly the F15? The story put me in mind of a US Naval Aviator who flying a Douglas Skyraider in southern Spain in December 1961 "collided with power lines while recklessly flying too low. The area suffered a power outage, but the pilot was able to return his damaged Skyraider to the USS Intrepid." (wikipedia) The aviator later became a US Senator and one-time presidential candidate John McCain. And that story is similar to that of the the Cavalese cable car disaster of 1998 which occurred on February 3, 1998, near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort in the Dolomites some 40 km (25 mi) northeast of Trento. Twenty people died when a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway. (wikipedia) There are a still lot of cowboy fly-boys. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffalo Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 ...There was a related story linked on the BBC where an F15 from RAF Lakenheath created a sonic boom over Norfolk on April 17. Does the RAF fly the F15? RAF Lakenheath is the home of the USAF 48th Fighter Wing. It is, I believe, normal practice for airfields used by US services in the UK to retain the 'RAF' name. Presumably, the intention is to emphasise that they are 'guests' rather than 'occupying forces'. Nick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZiderHead Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 Not even the US Embassy is US sovereign territory, RAF stations (they are not USAF bases) certainly are not. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 I believe that USAF units using RAF stations are still covered by the 1952 Visiting Forces Act (which also covers visiting forces from other countries such as say a German warship docked in Portsmouth . Many countries have similar arrangements but in no way does it grant any of the status of an occupying power and the RAF stations they use are just that with RAF commanding officers. It does grant visiting forces certain legal privileges but does not absolve them from complying with UK law. To take a trivial example, I assume (perhaps wrongly) that an American ready meal sold in the Px would be required tp comply with US rather than UK food labelling regulations. For more on this see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6and1Eliz2/15-16/67/contents Some of the provisions of this act may be somewhat troubling where there are siginficant differences between British law and that of the visiitng military. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 RAF Lakenheath is the home of the USAF 48th Fighter Wing. I guessed the F15 in question was piloted by a USAF pilot. There's an Oregon Air Guard squadron at Portland International Airport (142nd Fighter Wing). They fly a sortie every morning. It's pretty impressive watching F15s roll down the runway in groups of two wingmen and launch in formation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZiderHead Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 I used to see F-15s operating out of Upper Heyford in the 80s, a beautiful aircraft. Cant say the same for the F-111s though Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.