Damn that's cool. BOOMBOOM!

BAAAANG BAAAAAANG.

If anyone is interested... the cargo plane sitting in the desert there is YC-15.

Also, the jet sounds you hear later in the video are probably Endeavor's chase plane (Gulfstream GII).

The shuttle that crashed in Garland Texas, went over my old house.

We didn't hear a boom, we heard a fucking explosion. The ships terminal(Fatal) velocity that I could find on record was Mach 19.5. when it hit the atmosphere it was traveling at estimated mach 24.

I was on the ground, outside face in the grass, thought there was another pilot light gas explosion.

You know that myth about hearing a whistling noise then the boom? Its not true, I had no Idea there was a shuttle traveling faster than he speed of sound above me.

I think about it now, and how low the shuttles contrail was. absolutely amazing. Terrible, but amazing.

so why would it be a double boom?

>> ^K0MMIE:
so why would it be a double boom?

In smooth flight, the shock wave starts at the nose of the aircraft and ends at the tail. Because directions around the aircraft's direction of travel are equivalent, the shock forms a cone with the aircraft at its tip. The half-angle (between direction of flight and the shock wave ) A is given by sin(A) = 1/M, where M is the plane's Mach number. So the faster it goes, the finer, more pointed the cone. There is a sudden rise in pressure at the nose, decreasing steadily to a negative pressure at the tail, followed by a sudden return to normal pressure after the object passes. This "overpressure profile" is known as an N-wave because of its shape. The "boom" is experienced when there is a sudden change in pressure, so the N-wave causes two booms, one when the initial pressure rise from the nose hits, and another when the tail passes and the pressure suddenly returns to normal. This leads to a distinctive "double boom" from supersonic aircraft. When maneuvering, the pressure distribution changes into different forms, with a characteristic U-wave shape.

look at the big brain on rgroom! TFTI