Word: sonics
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...making every house along the boom path seem "next door to a jet airport"--only worse. The sound of an arriving jet (all commercial jets fly below the speed of sound) builds up gradually, so at the peak of the noise there is no element of surprise. But a sonic boom provides no warning, and Shurcliff thinks that it is the boom's startling effect, even more than the noise itself, which makes it intolerable...
That is his main point of attack on the government-sponsored studies which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses to prove that people can in fact adjust to the sonic boom. The study which NASA quotes most often, by Bolt, Beranek and Newman, had subjects pushing buttons to activate an artificial boom-creating device. Although the artificial boom was as loud as a real one, the volunteers knew the boom would occur within five seconds after they pushed the button. Even among the fully-prepared subjects, almost half showed a marked increase in heart-beat as a result...
People living near military bases, where planes such as the SR-71 fly at supersonic speeds, often hear sonic booms, but few Boston area residents had ever heard one until the afternoon of August 18. "Sonic Boom Leaves Hub Trail of Terror," the Record-American headlined its story--no overstatement, according to other papers, because "scores of people" claimed to have been "knocked off their feet" by the boom, which was caused by a small military plane. Shurcliff doubts those particular claims, but booms invariably shatter windows, sometimes seriously undermine the foundations of buildings, and have even been responsible...
...calls the boom "sonic pollution," and his conclusion is pollution is not progress. "We all believe in progress," he says of his group, "but some things just aren't progress." One of this month's press releases concludes, "Aviation should be the servant of man, not his scourge...
...sold to airlines before the project can pass the break-even point). Also, another plane will be in the air by 1971, a conventionally-designed, subsonic "jumbo jet." This jet will carry upwards of 500 passengers (against 280 for the SST) at 700 miles per hour without a sonic boom; its proven design will be safer; its large capacity will reduce airport congestion; and its fares will be cheaper--perhaps half those of the SST, which may be as much as 25 per cent higher than current jet fares...