The first verified level flight - not during a dive - at beyond the speed of sound involved American test pilot Chuck Yeager in his X-1 aircraft in October 1947. "Eventually they merge into a single shock wave, which travels at the speed of sound." The Wikipedia page on the sound barrier states that some Second World War pilots claimed to have gone faster than sound during high-speed dives. These waves travel at the speed of sound and, as the speed of the object increases, the waves are forced together, or compressed, because they cannot get out of each other's way quickly enough. "When an aircraft passes through the air, it creates a series of pressure waves in front of the aircraft and behind it, similar to the bow and stern waves created by a boat. Explaining the science behind sonic booms, it states: "A sonic boom does not occur only at the moment an object crosses the sound barrier and neither is it heard in all directions emanating from the supersonic object. The page goes on to add that sonic booms caused by large aircraft can sometimes cause minor damage to structures. It adds: "Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion or a thunderclap to the human ear." READ MORE: 'My house shook' - people describe moment sonic boom struckĪccording to Wikipedia, a sonic boom is "a sound associated with shock waves created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound". Computer modelling by US researcher Dr Nathan Myhrvold even suggests some dinosaurs that used their long tails as defensive whips could have broken the sound barrier with the tips of their tails. While sonic booms are pretty rare, they are caused every time a gun is fired or a whip is cracked. The sonic boom was loud enough to seem like a car crash, explosion or the roof falling in for some people around the county. Police across the areas received reports of an explosion and the Leicestershire and Northants forces both put out requests for people to stop calling 999. The huge sonic boom caused alarm across Leicestershire, as well as Northants and parts of Oxfordshire. When a pair of RAF Typhoon jets flew south at supersonic speeds on Saturday they broke through what is known as the sound barrier - which is around 760mph, depending on the air conditions.
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