Never heard a sonic boom?

[Tenacious Sloth]

Aaah the Mach Loop.

I loved growing up in N Wales. Hours spent sitting on mountains looking down on all sorts of planes.

Jaguars, Phantoms, Tornados , Harriers.

Never saw a Lightning though . would have loved to as that was a fast fast jet

Unlikely to see a Lightning flying low level around North Wales as it was designed for high level intercept.

Basically a rocket, with a pilot strapped to it.

Graham

 

[Paulus]

I saw lightnings as a kid in the 60's, an impressive noise. Lightnings also flew around the country before the first Concord flights were introduced to get people used to the sonic boom.

 

[rugby bloke]

There were Lightings based at out local RAF base - Finningly in South Yorkshire, now Doncaster Robin Hood Airport. The highlight of the annual Airshow was a Lighting standing on it's tail and then going vertical, awesome to watch as a kid. On a side note, when the airport opened I can remember a very sniffy Radio 2 broadcast wondering if the runway would be long enough for the airliners. They had clearly not done any research otherwise they would have known it was long enough to get a fully loaded Vulcan into the air, which seemed to need about 5 miles ! Got to love the North London meja and their north south blinkers.

 

[PhilDawson8270]

Aaah the Mach Loop.

I loved growing up in N Wales.
Never saw a Lightning though

Unlikely to see a Lightning low level around North Wales

I'd have thought lightning would have been quite common in Wales, along with the rain and storms

 

[subaqua]

Unlikely to see a Lightning flying low level around North Wales as it was designed for high level intercept.

Basically a rocket, with a pilot strapped to it.

Graham

sorry , should have made it clearer . Valley was a good airfield for "end of day" landings and you would get all sorts dropping in but I never saw a Lightning . Buccaneers, Canberras coming in from atlantic patrols were quite common.

the Valley airshow was where I first saw a Vulcan flying. July 1982 . The roar will stay with me forever.

 

[gavgav]

I encountered one a few years back, whilst on a work training day at Shrewsbury Town Football Club. The general consensus after the roof sounded like it had come off, was that it was the nearby quarry blasting. Confirmed afterwards as a sonic boom from a jet

 

[Fab Foodie]

Living in Exeter during the Concorde era you could hear the double boom from as she was still over the sea. You could almost set your watch by them.

 

[winjim]

It's airshow year so I'll be going back to Farnborough to visit the family. Taking my little girl so we'll have to get her some ear defenders. I'm hoping with the escalation of tensions that the Russians might send some planes. The Cold War was a good time to grow up if you liked to watch willy-waving warplane aerobatics.

 

[NorthernDave]

[QUOTE 4262531, member: 76"]We we went on exercise we would frequently be overflown by very fast moving fighter/bombers at stupid low levels. A Harrier at full attack speed at less than 100' is quite a thing If you don't know it's coming it's like a stun grenade going off![/QUOTE]

A bit like this one? *Warning - there is a bit of swearing...

You can waste days watching this sort of thing on YouTube...

My dad used to tell tales of Lightnings going vertical over Skipton during the 70's - and on one memorable occasion a Vulcan doing the same, before such games, sorry, essential exercises were banned due to the level of complaints the RAF were getting.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Living in Exeter during the Concorde era you could hear the double boom from as she was still over the sea. You could almost set your watch by them.

I was visiting a friend who lived in Porlock near to Minehead (he now lives in Minehead). Anyway, we were out for a walk somewhere with his dogs when suddenly I felt the air presuse change and there was a sort of small

'Dump'

or

'Thump'

noise.

'That's Concorde flying over'

he said. I have no idea if he was joking, I don't think so, but I always imagined it would be louder (although they would still be speeding up or slowing down, I get it)

 

[Fab Foodie]

I was visiting a friend who lived in Porlock near to Minehead (he now lives in Minehead). Anyway, we were out for a walk somewhere with his dogs when suddenly I felt the air presuse change and there was a sort of small

'Dump'

or

'Thump'

noise.

'That's Concorde flying over'

he said. I have no idea if he was joking, I don't think so, but I always imagined it would be louder (although they would still be speeding up or slowing down, I get it)

That was pretty much it! Though IIRC it was a double Dump - Dump .... Early evening, 5pm maybe ...

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

That was pretty much it! Though IIRC it was a double Dump - Dump .... Early evening, 5pm maybe ...

It may have been a double one, but I wasn't expecting it, so not paying attention.

I think this was early afternoon (although I could be wrong), so possibly the flight out from Heathrow?

 

[machew]

 

[Fnaar]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nce-flight-wasn-t-responding-radio-calls.html

 

[RoubaixCube]

I witnessed a Tornado going supersonic over the valleys once in scotland. we must of been North/North West of Inverness driving up to John O' Groats at that time. What a beautiful sight.