Word: boom
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Though the Federal Government has already spent upwards of $3,000,000 on research, it has still not decided what strength of sonic boom-if any-will be "acceptable" in populated areas. After the FAA bombarded Oklahoma City with eight booms a day for six months in 1964, three out of four inhabitants said they could tolerate it-but one out of four said he could...
Since the Air Force's SR-71 began flying over Chicago three months ago, the Chanute Air Force Base in downstate Illinois has received 1,630 letters of complaint, 1,497 of them claiming damage (usually cracked plaster and glass) caused by sonic booms. In Boston, the Air Force and Air Guard are formally investigating a recent boom that, according to newspaper accounts, knocked scores of pedestrians off their feet, leaving "a trail of terror...
Servant or Scourge? The most determined opponent of sonic boom-and of the nation's plans to build a supersonic transport (SST)-is Harvard Physicist William Shurcliff, 58, who worked on the atomic bomb with Vannevar Bush, and is now senior research associate at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator. Six months ago, Shurcliff, with nine friends, founded the Citizen's League Against the Sonic Boom, and membership has since grown to 1,320 in 45 states. In letters to members and newspaper ads, Shurcliff has propounded his fears that the SST might ultimately be permitted to fly at supersonic...
...single SST flying supersonic across the U.S., believes Shurcliff, would trail behind it a bang zone 50 miles wide that could destroy the peace of 20 million Americans. He also argues that competition from cheaper, larger "jumbo jets"-which will produce no sonic boom-could turn the SST venture into "a gigantic boomdoggle" with the taxpayers absorbing most of the loss. "We all believe in progress," he says for his group, "but some things just aren't progress. Aviation should be the servant of man, not his scourge...
...hopeful note is that altitude attenuates the boom. The SST will take off and land at subsonic speeds, and officials believe that if the plane cruises at over 60,000 ft., the noise would be muted to a thunderlike rumble. One thing Santa Barbara has made clear: no city is likely to tolerate being bombarded night and day by unexpected thunderclaps. The answer must be found reasonably soon. The Anglo-French supersonic Concorde is scheduled to begin flights before next spring, and the SST is expected to fly four years later...