On 9 Jun 2014 20:27:06 GMT, Huge wrote:



I used to fly to Copenhagen every Wednesday morning from Heathrow and more
often than not the aircraft in front of us was the morning Concord flight
to Washington. When he opened the taps for takeoff, everything in our
aircraft rattled & on a couple of occasions some of the overhead lockers
fell open. As he accelerated away down the runway you could see two things,
one impressive - into the exhausts of the engines, the mouth of Hell, one
less so - the huge plume of filth the thing chucked out the back.

North Devon where I have spent a lot of time used to get quite a thump
from the Sonic boom as some of the services westbound passed by out
to sea. It wasn't a direct bang but distant a boom like faraway
thunder, enough to rattle the odd window disturb pheasants and make
some grockles jump. It became part of the background noise like
distant church bells and was a useful peg that marked the passing of
the day.
Boom," ah there goes the 18.30 must be time for tea" sort of thing.
Now as much a lost sound of the past as copper phone wires humming in
the wind
One perfectly cloudless spring day I remember observing the early
evening flight from london to JFK while lying against a rock on Lundy
Island with a pair of decent binoculars, The afterburner glow was
easily seen as it accelerated 1000's of feet above the Bristol
channel.


G.Harman