People living in and around the Washington on Sunday experienced a rare, if startling, sound: A sonic boom.
People living in and around Washington experienced a rare, if startling, sound that has a rich history in American aviation and possibly a muted future: A sonic boom.
As the plane speeds through the air, molecules are pushed aside with great force, "and this forms a shock wave, much like a boat creates a wake in water," according to NASA. The F-16 Fighting Falcon can fly 1,500 mph or twice the speed of sound, known as Mach 2, according to the Air Force.In 1947, test pilot Charles "Chuck" Yeager became the first person to fly faster than sound in an orange, bullet-shaped Bell X-1 rocket plane. His exploits were told in Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff," and in the 1983 film it inspired.
For example, the Soviet Union became the first country in 1968 to fly a supersonic passenger plane, the Tupolev TU-144. But a fatal crash at the 1973 Paris Air Show ended that ambition. In 1973, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited supersonic flights over land, "based on the expectation that such flights would cause a sonic boom to reach the ground," the Congressional Research Service wrote.
The Concorde never caught on widely. The plane's economics were challenging, and its sonic booms led it to be banned on many overland routes. Only 20 were built; 14 of which were used for passenger service.Sonic booms are still heard in the U.S. from the nation's military aircraft. In 2021, a sonic boom from F-15 fighter jets caused widespread concern that there was an earthquake on the Oregon coast.
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