7:45 A.M. Italy (Naples) Sonic Boom!

This morning, like every day at 7:45 I was already at work.

When I was younger I would frequently hear sonic booms, but not anymore nowadays.

Some random facts:

• When Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947, they thought his plane had crashed because of this sound.
• The oldest human invention to break the sound barrier is in fact not the airplane, but the whip. The sound of a whip cracking is not the sound of leather hitting leather, but is a tiny sonic boom caused by the tip of the whip travelling faster than sound as it loops around. This was not discovered until the invention of high-speed video cameras which could show that that was what's happening.
• The first car to break the sound barrier was the Thrust SSC. It holds the world land speed record at 1228km/h.
• Despite the fact that a sonic boom is often called the sound of something breaking the sound barrier, this is not in fact accurate. Anything travelling faster than sound continually produces this sound, not just at the moment it breaks the sound barrier.

Sven Groot said:

When I was younger I would frequently hear sonic booms, but not anymore nowadays.

Some random facts:

• When Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947, they thought his plane had crashed because of this sound.
• The oldest human invention to break the sound barrier is in fact not the airplane, but the whip. The sound of a whip cracking is not the sound of leather hitting leather, but is a tiny sonic boom caused by the tip of the whip travelling faster than sound as it loops around. This was not discovered until the invention of high-speed video cameras which could show that that was what's happening.
• The first car to break the sound barrier was the Thrust SSC. It holds the world land speed record at 1228km/h.
• Despite the fact that a sonic boom is often called the sound of something breaking the sound barrier, this is not in fact accurate. Anything travelling faster than sound continually produces this sound, not just at the moment it breaks the sound barrier.

That video is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Needless to say in the U.S. many of us are close to Military bases where trials are run daily.
Guess that's where we spent all our money.

btw...Check Youtube for videos of Sonic booms over water.
You can see the water 'parting'.

wisemx said:

Needless to say in the U.S. many of us are close to Military bases where trials are run daily.
Guess that's where we spent all our money.

btw...Check Youtube for videos of Sonic booms over water.
You can see the water 'parting'.

Dovella said:

wisemx said:

*snip*

this is Italian News

Link

wisemx said:

Dovella said:

*snip*

hehe 

Wasn't it one of our F16s that hit a Ski gondola there about 10 years ago?
We need to be more careful...

Dovella said:

wisemx said:

*snip*

do not worry, if I find the pilot of the F16 to take it personally with the whip.

BlackTiger said:

Dovella said:

*snip*

I've heard it several times, but never saw.
It looks cool. Like in sci-fi movies.

Dovella said:

BlackTiger said:

*snip*

Ion Todirel said:

omg, is that by any chance an Eurofighter Typhoon? Italy has a lot of these...

I actually went to middle school in naples (napoli) at the happy horseshoe on the Nato base in naples.  I'm not sure if this is still relevant, but there used to be a rather famous 'lady of the evening' who's preferred hangout was along a stone wall at the side of the road...her moniker was 'humpty dumpty'.

No kidding, you could buy T-shirts at the base exchange that had a charicature of her and the phrase "humpty dumpty sat on a wall" underneath.

On the plus side, though, you have the capri islands, great weather, pompeii and the much better preserved herculaneum.  I just wish I was there as an adult.

ScanIAm said:

I actually went to middle school in naples (napoli) at the happy horseshoe on the Nato base in naples.  I'm not sure if this is still relevant, but there used to be a rather famous 'lady of the evening' who's preferred hangout was along a stone wall at the side of the road...her moniker was 'humpty dumpty'.

No kidding, you could buy T-shirts at the base exchange that had a charicature of her and the phrase "humpty dumpty sat on a wall" underneath.

On the plus side, though, you have the capri islands, great weather, pompeii and the much better preserved herculaneum.  I just wish I was there as an adult.

Dovella said:

ScanIAm said:

*snip*

Naples is a Mix of  Beverly Hills, Bronx  an Tokyo
my examples are not random.

We have town like  Sorrento, Positano , Amalfi , Capri, Nerano, Conca dei Marini , etc etc..

where you can leave your Ferrari alone with the keys on the dashboard , no thief will take you off the car.

VIP every year from all over the world spend their holidays here  (Bill Gates went to Nerano with  Octupus).

More remote areas are invaded by criminals, like Scampia , Forcella , Quartieri Spagnoli etc.

In all this good living in Naples depends only on the area you live in, probably this can be true for every city in the world.

Dovella said:

ScanIAm said:

*snip*

Naples is a Mix of  Beverly Hills, Bronx  an Tokyo
my examples are not random.

We have town like  Sorrento, Positano , Amalfi , Capri, Nerano, Conca dei Marini , etc etc..

where you can leave your Ferrari alone with the keys on the dashboard , no thief will take you off the car.

VIP every year from all over the world spend their holidays here  (Bill Gates went to Nerano with  Octupus).

More remote areas are invaded by criminals, like Scampia , Forcella , Quartieri Spagnoli etc.

In all this good living in Naples depends only on the area you live in, probably this can be true for every city in the world.

I have so many great memories of living there, but I think my favorite was when we took a ferry out to visit capri.  Naples harbor, at the time, was a cesspool of dirty, brown, nasty water that is always common in a commercial port/harbor.  Upon nearing Capri, though, you would have thought you were hovering over the sea bottom.  The water around Capri is bluer, even, than the caribbean.

Oh, and italian drivers are probably the most skilled, and yet the most inconsiderate I've ever seen:

They can turn a 2 lane intersection into a 5 lane standstill

Calimari FTW!