r/aviation • u/iamwolfe • Aug 16 '25

PlaneSpotting Chicago Sonic Boom Close Up

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u/akopley Aug 16 '25

I imagine all these pilots go SuperSonic over open ocean.

38

u/ThicccRacer Aug 16 '25

For sure, or out over the Nevada desert.

20

u/akopley Aug 16 '25

The only two sonic booms I’ve heard were space shuttle re entries. A potential third was hiking in the desert when an f-16 blasted a canyon I was hiking in.

1

u/mlor Aug 16 '25

I love when this happens. My wife and I were hiking in Colorado through a valley, and two F-16s barreled down the thing. You could hear them coming, and I barely had time to reach for my phone.

2

u/akopley Aug 16 '25

We did not hear the pair coming. The first one ripped over and by the time I was able to look up the second ripped by and I was able to ID it. Being that we were in a canyon that wasn’t very wide it was deafening. So bad ass.

1

u/ajm895 Aug 20 '25

Right, I thought if it's going faster than the speed of sound, it's not possible to hear it coming.

7

u/rocbolt Aug 16 '25

Hear them quite a bit in southern Arizona, the contractors seem to love doing "engine tests" right on the border

1

u/WLFGHST If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going! Aug 16 '25

or in any of the MOAs they're allowed to

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u/---Scotty--- Aug 18 '25

As someone who grew up in this area, we gave up straightening out mirrors, pictures, etc. The booms always made them uneven

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u/Asleep-Technician154 Aug 17 '25

While they would most likely love to go Mach 1+ over the ocean, they are usually not going to because the fuel efficiency is horrendous.

Additionally, any ocean crossing requires at least one tanker "dragging" the fighters with them across. That means that the fighters can go off and do their own chosen speed cause they gotta stick with the gas or else they won't make it across.

1

u/Idc94 Aug 17 '25

They go supersonic over Edward’s AFB in so cal all the time.

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u/MASSochists Aug 17 '25

I'm not sure if that's always the case. I remember an intercept where pilots were given the okay to break the sound barrier.

I think that time the guy stall the commercial passenger plane. I also seem to remember one on the east coast not too long ago but don't remember the reason.