TropicalTroubador wrote:Once upon a time, I was privleged enough to see a Shuttle landing at Edwards AFB, back when I lived in southern CA. I believe it was STS-26, Discovery, one of the first flights after Challenger. You could not only hear the sonic booms; they were *visible* as they approached - two expanding arcs/circles of whiteness, overlapping a bit from my perspective.
While I lived in southern CA, I got used to that double-boom sound when Shuttles came back. You could hear them for quite a few miles away from the designated LZ, certainly over most of the LA basin and San Fernando Valley.
SWEET!!!
How many of us are old enough to remember hearing sonic booms with some regularity?
Carry on as you know they would want you to do. ~~JB, dedication to Tim Russert
Take your time
Find your passion
Life goes on until it ends
Don’t stop living
Until then
~~Mac McAnally
TropicalTroubador wrote:Once upon a time, I was privleged enough to see a Shuttle landing at Edwards AFB, back when I lived in southern CA. I believe it was STS-26, Discovery, one of the first flights after Challenger. You could not only hear the sonic booms; they were *visible* as they approached - two expanding arcs/circles of whiteness, overlapping a bit from my perspective.
While I lived in southern CA, I got used to that double-boom sound when Shuttles came back. You could hear them for quite a few miles away from the designated LZ, certainly over most of the LA basin and San Fernando Valley.
SWEET!!!
How many of us are old enough to remember hearing sonic booms with some regularity?
I used to hear them often in Key West, early 70's, the RA-5 Vigis would get chased back up from Cuba on their photo runs.
TropicalTroubador wrote:Once upon a time, I was privleged enough to see a Shuttle landing at Edwards AFB, back when I lived in southern CA. I believe it was STS-26, Discovery, one of the first flights after Challenger. You could not only hear the sonic booms; they were *visible* as they approached - two expanding arcs/circles of whiteness, overlapping a bit from my perspective.
While I lived in southern CA, I got used to that double-boom sound when Shuttles came back. You could hear them for quite a few miles away from the designated LZ, certainly over most of the LA basin and San Fernando Valley.
I think that comes from the increased pressure on the air. I know that in some cases of bomb/high explosive detonations that you can see the pressure wave as it expands. I have seen some really cool pictures of Navy jets breaking the sound barrier in air that is extremely humid, and there is a vapor "ring" that forms around the plane due to the pressure of the shock.
I've seen the shuttle launch once, from the beach at Daytona, and having the boom hit up after 5-10 minutes was a really cool thing. I also remember one of the landing profiles in 99 or 2000 brought the shuttle pretty much right over Atlanta. The double booms shook everything in town right around lunchtime.
