When I was a kid, I remember hearing sonic booms all the time from Air
Force jets flying overhead.  We lived almost 300 miles from the nearest
Air Force base!  But in those days, the jets pretty much flew where they
wanted to and were not restricted for noise.  That changed in the 70's,
farmers were unhappy about the farm animals getting skittish.  So flight
patterns even for the military were changed so the booms pretty much now
occur over unpopulated areas (when possible).

The US SST was pretty much designed, and a prototype was being built
when it was cancelled.  At the time, (1971-73), there was a lot of
concern about the cost of the program, the environmental impact, and
noise.  It was during this same era when many of the laws for the EPA
were enacted.  We were fighting to save the eagle and several species of
birds that were being impacted by DDT.

Erik Vistica wrote:
>
> I read a great book some time ago titled "Flying Concorde" by one of the
> pilots (found it in the public library). Fun reading. I believe that
> they are restricted to subsonic over land in the USA (which is why it
> rarely visits the west coast. Costs too much to operate that slow).
>
> There were concerns about the frequent sonic boom disturbing wildlife on
> land and ongoing concerns about it affecting sea life (I beg to differ).
> I wonder how the boom from the plane differs from the boom from a
> lightning strike (which, I hear from unconfirmed sources, hits the
> planet somewhere about 44,000 times/day - I bet Wirt could give an
> accurate number :-)
>
> Tom Brandt wrote:
> >
> > At 04:49 PM 07/27/00, Nick Demos wrote:
> > >It kind of boggles my mind with our advances in technology there bo
> > >foreseeable successors to the COncorde.  Wouldn't a 400 passenger SST
> > >that could make four round trips a day between America and europe be
> > >economically viable?
> >
> > One of the issues alluded to in a previous message is noise - SSTs are so
> > noisy that Concorde is restricted from flying most places in the US.  They
> > occasionally make an appearance in other US cities besides Washington and
> > NY as a charter, but I am not sure if they get a special waiver to fly to
> > other cities, of if they fly to them as subsonic speeds.
> >
> > I did see a TV report after the crash that said someone is working on a
> > quiet SST, but whether such a thing will get off the ground is an open
> > question.
> >
> > Tom Brandt
> > Northtech Systems, Inc.
> > http://www.northtech.com