Whatever happened to sonic booms?

[FLOOB]

Growing up in the 1980s I remember sonic booms were more frequent than thunder. In Washington, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Idaho, California so don’t say it was a regional thing. I haven’t heard a sonic boom in decades I think.

[AKIron]

I remember when they would rattle the windows. They were banned around 50 years ago in the US for commercial and restricted for military.

[Shuffler]

Sonic removed all menu items that caused gas back in the 1990s.

[AKIron]

Sonic removed all menu items that caused gas back in the 1990s.

Grok says that's a damn lie. 

[Oldman731]

Growing up in the 1980s I remember sonic booms were more frequent than thunder.

My Wonder Bread Years were in Columbus, Ohio during the late 1950s and up to 1967.  During those years SAC used the town for practice - I imagine someone knew which Russian town we resembled.  B-58s were bombing us all the time.

Not that I miss that, you understand.

- oldman

[AKKuya]

Majestic 12 stepped in, declaring the sonic booms were scaring away the flying saucer men.

[icepac]

My first spoken sentence was "feffer fraid to D sonic boom" meaning i had to think quick when my sister ran home crying to my mom who was eyeing me sternly.

This was at NAS Leemore.

[Fencer51]

Last one I heard was on 9/11.  AirForce One was east bound and her escorts had tanked west of us and broke the sound barrier to catch her.  An air traffic controller filled in the reason later.. a single plane was west bound with burn injuries for Indy, they were hurring to check it out.  This was mid to late afternoon.  Neighbors had no idea what it was.. freaked them out, but the jets where visable overhead.

[Randy1]

Concord kad a lot to do with it.  Boeing spent a lot of money back then convincing congress the concord sonic boom would be bad.  That is, bad for Boeing.

[Busher]

Concord kad a lot to do with it.  Boeing spent a lot of money back then convincing congress the concord sonic boom would be bad.  That is, bad for Boeing.

Hate to disagree but the Concorde burned almost twice as much fuel as a B747 and carried far less than half the number of passengers. Considering that supersonic flight over the continent was never going to be allowed, the airplane, while amazing technology, was a novelty that Boeing saw as a waste of research dollars.

[AKIron]

Sonic booms were common around Dallas in the 60's. All military jets. They would rattle the windows.

[CptTrips]

Sonic booms were common around Dallas in the 60's. All military jets. They would rattle the windows.

I remember we had them occasionally in SW Houston in the early 70's.  Not sure where from.

[icepac]

Supersonic transports were considered to deal with pilots on long flights “running out of time”.

[AKIron]

I believe B-58s were assigned to Carswell in the 1960's. Likely those that we heard in Dallas.