Fighter jet myth confirm/debunk.

savagesicslayer

savagesicslayer

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A few years ago I heard a story about a Gulf War pilot who killed a bunch of Iraqi ground troops with the sonic boom of his F-15 eagle.The story goes that he was out of munitions and saw the Iraqi troops moving on allied troops so he dove down and when he was really close hit his afterburners and went supersonic close to the ground killing them with the sonic boom.Is this just BS?It sounds plausible but not at all practical.I then heard the same story about a guy in NAM doing the same with his Phantom.
So my question is,have any of our enlisted members heard this story too?Can you confirm/deny it happened?My Google-Fu seems weak on this cause I'm drawing blanks on this witch leads me down the road to BS.But,it never hurts to ask.
 
I am pretty sure that a sonic boom will not kill anyone. I guess if it's loud enough and close enough it could burst your ear drums.

Sonic Drive In, on the other hand, may prove deadly. ;)
 
As much as as I hate to cite Mythbusters as empirical scientific evidence of something (love the show, but true scientists they are not), they did a myth about shattering glass with sonic booms. They set up a shack with glass windows, a table with various glass objects, a car, etc, then flew a Blue Angels F/A-18 supersonic repeatedly at very low levels to try and shatter the glass. They eventually managed to break one window on the shack.

Meanwhile, Jamie and the whole film crew were standing right there at "ground zero". They had hearing protection for obvious reasons, but otherwise, they were just fine. I don't remember the exact altitudes they flew at, but I know they got pretty damn low, as you could expect from a Blue Angel pilot.

Wikipedia's entry on sonic booms confirms these results. The strongest sonic boom effects measured were from an F-4 100 feet AGL, and everybody was fine.

The fact is that while a sonic boom is a pressure wave, just like from an explosion, it's not even close to being the same force/speed, and wouldn't be even remotely lethal. Sure, if you're not wearing ear protection you could burst your eardrums, but so can a simple slap to the ear. And any ear damage can cause loss of balance and maybe even make a person faint. But it's not lethal.
 
Total BS. Maybe if the boom caused an avalanch. But not many snowy mountains in Iraq or Vietnam. For an F-15 to kill you with no ordinance it would pretty much have to hit you.
 
If this were the case both my brother and I would be dead.
We were at the International Air Tattoo at Greenham Common in either '82 or '83 ( I forget which) when a crazy Luftwaffe F104 pilot dived down under another 104 crossing the field.
At about 500ft agl he passed through the sound barrier right infront of us. The noise was indescribable.
I was standing about 300-500 metres away but there were many thousands of people closer than me.....
None died......:o (but I have feeling that the pilot was in deep dodo)
 
Likewise. When I was in the army back in the 60s, our convoys were frequently "targeted" by the aggressor air forces. Not only that, but a fast-moving jet could easily pick up the bright red-on-white crosses on our medic tracks, so the flyboys would delight in "booming" us at low altitude as they went over.
Annoyingly loud, but no one was ever hurt.

They were flying mostly twin-engine Phantoms; the Germans flying F-104 Starfighters.
 
a sonic boom may not in itself be the cause of immediate death. but perhaps a secondary after effect might trigger something else that's just as deadly, like a rock fall or avalanche foe instance.
 
I think a sound has to be 180 dB or higher to constitute a lethal shock wave. Not sure if that's SIL or SWL though.
 
They used to have F-14s do flight deck-level sonic booms on the carrier about 100feet away. It shook a bunch of dust out of the ductwork on the ship, but as long as you have your "ears" on, it can't hurt you.

BTW--it's really cool!

[YOUTUBE]<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/s24F5Qmehj8&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/s24F5Qmehj8&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

Totally wicked!!!

Or this...

[YOUTUBE]<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Igy_MYJpVcQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Igy_MYJpVcQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

It's unbelievably loud at that distance.
 
That is cool as hell! You can see the shockwave making a trail in the water as the jet flies over it.
 
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