yeah, we considered that. We see those jets taking off and landing by the airport a lot. Noisy doesn't even begin to describe it. But both of us are old enough to remember sonic booms as kids and this seemed deeper and I felt the floor move under me. It would have also been a first for the military jets here.
who knows? Not like anyone is saying anything and it's over, so we're chalking it up to one of those "Puget Sounds'
Mary.
For some reason there are no fighter jets at McCord AFB or Whidbey NAS. The nearest interceptor jets are at the Oregon Air National Guard out of the Portland airport (PDX). If there is a security "threat" in the Seattle area those are the planes that are scrambled to intercept. When they scramble, the afterburners kick in about the time they're 100 feet in the air and they go supersonic with the attendant sonic "BOOM". That may have been what you heard. A short while back the First Lady and The VP made trips to Seattle. When that happens the air space around Seattle is closed to any private planes; any that enter that space are considered a threat and the jets on alert in Portland come up. The trip up from PDX only takes them about 8 minutes or less (more like 5 if they are F-15s with a reported 2.5 Mach top end.)This is what did happen earlier this year when the Pres. was in Seattle. Some private pilot coming from eastern Washington didn't get the memo and when radar saw him a few miles out from the no fly zone over the Cascades they scrambled two planes out of PDX. They were on his butt long before he got close to Seattle and "escorted" him to an airport away from Seattle. But when those two jets came over Olympia they were screaming. We were outside and I swear somebody had blasted a couple of stumps on the next street over.So based on that experience I could well imagine you might of heard something like that.Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 10:06:36 -0700 From: printces@xxxxxxxxxxxx To: elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [elky] Re: a moment of silence, please .fighter jets. hmm hadn't considered that. We figured it was probably related to the heavy trucks we've been hearing lately. Perhaps someone is trying to build on the edge of the valley (we're at the bottom next to a ledge) and needed to blow up some rock. Or a really big stump. Either way - no sirens, no activity.Mary and something went 'BOOM' a few hours ago (speaking of taking trees down). Took a walk around and whatever shook the house is still a mystery. Probably a good thing. Mary We get quite a few booms here too. Caused by fighter jets... I see the new F-22 flying around on almost a daily basis. Easy to pick out too, don't even need to see it as it's louder than any other plane out there. Sounds like an F4 with the AB on. No need for radar lock just set the missle to go to the loudest noise. Robert Adams
