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Comment by bboreham | Hacker News Reader

I lived and worked within ten miles of London Heathrow airport when Concorde was flying; not under the flight path but off to the side. Every time Concorde took off you had to cease conversation until it passed; it was that loud.

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I lived under the flight path during my 2nd year engineering exams. I thought about building some noise cancelling headphones but I couldn't work out how to stop my whole skeleton from vibrating.

I subsequently worked with a Concorde when I worked at the Science Museum in London and I must say I fell a bit in love with it. It had a wonderful mix of glamour and geek that completely struck a chord.

I lived for a while right at the end of the Terminal Four runway at Heathrow. You could fairly reach up and touch the departing planes, and obviously cups and cutlery would rattle on the table as they passed overhead.

However, Concorde really wasn't the worst offender. The 747s delivered a noticeably deeper and more earthshaking thunder.

I am aware this is completely anecdotal, and that once supersonic, the Concorde would drown out anything Boeing.

Lived for a few months within yards of the approach for Pease AFB, New Hampshire... KC-130Qs and F-111s. (Yep, that long ago.) The F-111s were cool sounding, almost a metallic screech of those long thin supersonic engines.

The KCs used water-augmentation (I think) on takeoff with a full fuselage of fuel, and honestly sounded like the sky was made of 100 layers of cotton and someone was tearing them apart with their hands. 2 solid minutes of "hey, they're ripping the sky again" and the water would run out and they'd sound like a normal heavily loaded Boeing chassis again.

Miss it still

Me too, and I still miss it.

Likewise. I used to live in Reading, west of Heathrow, and twice a day they'd be this crackling roar and the windows would rattle, unlike anything else that flew; and you'd look up, and there would be that glorious arrowhead silhouette, sliding through the sky.

I don't care if Concorde was uneconomic. Some things you should do just because they're beautiful.

I lived in that area as well and yes, every single time it went over I had to look up at it and watch

And the Vulcan. Beautiful sound, beautiful plane.

Its said that once a USAF pilot saw the Vulcan manoeuvring and remarked that it was awfully big for a fighter...

Saw a Vulcan doing aerobatics fairly low over the wee Scottish village where I grew up probably late 70s - an absolutely unforgettable sight and the NOISE - like a thousand tormented demons howling at once.

Not sure if the Vulcan was supposed to deter the Soviets with its nukes or simply scare them to death.

Edit: The Vulcan wasn't just loud in the "strategic bomber" sense of loud - it also sometimes generated a completely unearthly howl that it is famous for. Combine the engine noise and the howl and it really was quite a monster.

I think awareness of the Vulcan's purpose coupled with that howling was the big thing for me when I saw it fly after they restored one. What an incredible machine.

Just a shame it was originally built to kill millions of Russians. I know military investment produces all kinds of awesome technology, but... we could be better than that. And that's something Concorde felt like it represented.

Och yes - I passionately hate what these things were intended to do but I can't help be fascinated by the engineering and history of it all.

It was intended to deter aggression, which it did successfully!

I was lucky enough to see one of the last two flights and capture it doing a lazy turn at low altitude: https://www.flickr.com/photos/136766297@N06/21457421183/in/a...

And the spectacular TSR-2[1], which would have completely revolutionised things in the air, but the project was cancelled when it was almost finished.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2

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