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'Sonic boom': The Joy of Living Near An AFB

Winter

Gag me with a spoon
19 Nov 2003
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I've lived on, or near an Air Force base all of my life *my papa was a mechanic for the AF*, so its not uncommon to see cargo planes, and C-5's flying over my home. But about 6 months ago, I saw something that was uncommon. An F-16. Now if you've ever seen or heard those babies screetch by at full speed, its quite a sight.

Today, about 10 minutes ago, I just heard, then barely saw, an F-18. Fast, very very very fast machines.
 
Kind of reminds me of the thread I posted last year:

Was that REALLY an F-117A going over my house last night?!

I think it was a B-2, though. Not an F-117A. I swear I saw it and it was very weird.

I am not sure which base they are coming from, but they are always flying over my house. F-18s and F-16s go over a lot. Just the other day, 4 went over at the same time, and low. It was loud.
 
Its loud, and great to watch because they can go so fast. The first F-16 I saw in my city, I heard it, looked up, saw the speck of the craft, looked back, looked up again, and the SOB was out of sight. Fast as hell.
 
Saw A Harrier At An Air Show...

made the hair on the back of my neck stand up!! I was the closest thing to a UFO encounter I ever want to see!
I was at camp a few years back, 40 miles in the woods, so peaceful & quiet; boom, a jet came down the river vally about 20 feet off the deck! Amazing they can fly so fast, so low!

Frank
 
i miss hearing the sonic booms, used to hear them all the time as a kid before george AFB closed down. its been many a year since ive heard one.
 
Once a year back home someone high up agrees to send a bunch or rare and unique military aircraft to po-dunk Eastern Washington for an airshow in a town of about 30,000. One year we got an F-16, two Marine Harriers, an F-14, and F-18, a Warthog, and, oddly enough, a MiG, all at the same time. I agree, Winter, an F16 is quite a thing to see.

One cloudy day a B2 appeared out of nowhere. Even made the papers the next day. Back home the airport was a Army bomber training camp back in WW2 and a point of return for bombers coming home from Russia- if the big one would have happened - for a number of years. The B2 was out practicing 0 visability approaches on the longer than normal runways. Not much of a military buff, but it was damn cool.
 
I used to live next to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and we used to always see F-4s and later F-16s flying overhead when I was a kid.

They might look cool, but living next to an air base is right up there with living next to a pulp and paper mill or an elevated train line when it comes to being a pain-in-the ***. I know Japanese who live next to the American military bases here are pretty fed up with being woken up by F-18s practising night landings at 2AM. I can't say I blame them, living next to a base deprives them of peace and quiet and ruins the value of their property.
 
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