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Can a pilot see a sonic boom?

If you're WONDERing about how pilots handle sonic booms, they actually don't hear them. They can see the pressure waves around the plane, but people on board the airplane can't hear the sonic boom. Like the wake of a ship, the boom carpet unrolls behind the airplane.
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Can a pilot feel a sonic boom?

Answer: The Pilot never hears it because he is travelling faster than the speed of sound. It would never reach his ears.
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Can a sonic boom be seen?

A sonic boom is visible. It is actually air that becomes squashed by sound waves. It appears as a cone of vapor around the aircraft.
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Why can't pilots hear sonic boom?

When a pilot flies the plane at a speed greater than the velocity of sound then shock waves are generated behind the plane , therefore for a pilot it is not possible to hear sonic boom (explosion of noise caused by shock waves) , as he is moving forward ahead of sonic boom .
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Can you hear a sonic boom in an aircraft?

Depending on the aircraft's altitude, sonic booms reach the ground two to 60 seconds after flyover. However, not all booms are heard at ground level. The speed of sound at any altitude is a function of air temperature. A decrease or increase in temperature results in a corresponding decrease or increase in sound speed.
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How high do you have to fly to not hear sonic boom?

For an aircraft flying at a supersonic speed of about Mach 1.2 or less at an altitude above 35,000 feet, the shockwaves being produced typically do not reach the ground, so no sonic boom is heard.
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What would happen if you were hit by a sonic boom?

The effects of sonic boom on man's physical and mental health are presented. Sonic booms have marked effects on behavior and subjective experience as exemplified by startle reactions and attendant feelings of fear. Such intrusions disrupt sleep, rest and relaxation, and also interfere with communications.
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Why is it illegal to break the sound barrier?

Breaking the sound barrier leads to a sonic boom. And regulators have determined that people need to be protected from sonic booms. Planes produce sound waves when they travel. At under Mach 1, these waves propagate in front of a plane.
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Has a 747 ever broken the sound barrier?

High-speed 747s

The 747-100, for instance, was tested up to Mach 0.99, almost breaking the sound barrier. Other 747s, such as Air Force One, have approached the sound barrier but never crossed it.
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Can a sonic boom shake your house?

The aircraft pushes a cone of pressurized air molecules out of the way so quickly that they're spread out into a shock wave. It's rare for sonic booms to break windows or cause serious structural damage to buildings, but it's technically possible if the the sonic boom is powerful enough, according to NASA.
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Does a sonic boom hurt?

Sonic booms produced by aircraft flying supersonic at altitudes of less than 100 feet, creating between 20 and 144 pounds overpressure, have been experienced by humans without injury. Damage to eardrums can be expected when overpres- sures reach 720 pounds.
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When were sonic booms banned?

In the 1950s and '60s, Americans filed some 40,000 claims against the Air Force, whose supersonic jets were making a ruckus over land. Then in 1973, the FAA banned overland supersonic commercial flights because of sonic booms—a prohibition that remains in effect today.
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Can a private pilot go supersonic?

Yes, In the U.S.A there are many privately owned ex-military jet fighters that are capable of exceeding Mach 1. It is quite conceivable that a privately owned fighter jet has exceeded Mach 1 but not reported it or been caught by the authorities.
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Does a gunshot make a sonic boom?

Most bullets make small sonic booms when flying through the air, which to our ears sound like a loud, distinct “crack!” For the Pentagon's special forces, that makes it hard to be sneaky about what they're shooting.
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What was the fastest plane to break the sound barrier?

Seventy-five years ago, on October 14, 1947, the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis, piloted by U.S. Air Force Captain Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager, became the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1). The experimental purpose-built aircraft reached 1,127 kilometers (700 miles) per hour (Mach 1.06).
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What is the fastest mach speed ever recorded?

The Fastest Fighter Jet Ever

It reached record top speed of Mach 6.72 or 4,520 mph, which is more than five times the speed of sound. The X-125 was an experimental hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft developed in the 1960's and still holds the record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft.
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Can humans survive Mach 1?

The drag forces at the speed of sound are immence and will rip you apart. He was only travelling in the open airstream at mach 1 for less than a second before slowing down. If you were to run at mach 1, you would be ripped apart.
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Has a human ever broken the sound barrier?

Traveling faster than the speed of sound seems impossible for a human to accomplish without the use of jet planes or machinery. But back in 2012, a skydiver broke the sound barrier by freefalling with a well-equipped pressure suit and a parachute from a height of 127,852 feet.
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Is it possible to go Mach 10?

Mach 10 speed has never been achieved by a manned aircraft, though, so it has never been tested. Mach 10 has, however, been achieved by a spacecraft - on November 16, 2004, NASA launched the X-43A, an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle, and was able to reach real Mach 10 while being pushed into the atmosphere.
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Why don t we fly supersonic anymore?

That is largely because of physics: specifically, the sonic boom, the thunderclap noise made when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier (and continues as the aircraft flies beyond the barrier), which essentially doomed supersonic aviation as a viable business.
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How far away can sonic boom be heard?

The altitude of the supersonic vehicle affects how far sonic booms can travel. They're heard based on the width of the "boom carpet." The width ends up being about one mile for each 1,000 feet of altitude, so an aircraft flying at 50,000 feet would produce a sonic boom cone about 50 miles wide.
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Do bullets break the sound barrier?

As the speed of the bullet increases, the waves are forced together, or compressed, as they cannot get out of each other's way quickly enough. This creates the crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. Bullets traveling below the speed of sound are referred to as subsonic.
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What do pilots hear when they break the sound barrier?

When the object has passed over the observer, the pressure disturbance waves (Mach waves) radiate toward the ground, causing a sonic boom. The region in which someone can hear the boom is called the boom carpet. The intensity of the boom is greatest directly below the flight path and decreases on either side of it.
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