I live near Tinker AFB and regularly get to see B1-B’s and B-52’s take off and land (this is one of very few places where you see both on a regular basis). I know the B-1 uses four turbofan engines rather than the turbojets used by the Concorde but there is no mistaking it when one does a military takeoff. The B-52, which has eight turbojets, is a different kind of loud, whethter it is coming or going. Neither of these, however, has anything on a sonic boom.
You wanna hear a loud noise? Go watch a Space Shuttle launch. I saw one from across the Indian River, 7 miles away, and it was the loudest thing I ever heard. I could FEEL the sound in my chest. The veteran rocket-watchers all told me that the Saturn V Moon rockets were even louder. Even from 7 miles away, people put their hands over their ears during an Apollo launch.
I grew up near Dallas in the 60s and I heard the same sonic booms CurtC heard. I think they were flying out of Carswell AFB in Fort Worth. They were annoying.
Once, the Space Shuttle landed in Edwards at about 5AM and the sonic boom was enough to shake the walls. Some people reported it as an earthquake.
the sonic boom happens because the object is going faster then the air can get out of the way. Usually when an object moves through the air there is some compression of air at the front and that compression causes more air to compress and kind of relays an image of the object slightly ahead of the object. This allows air to gradually change it’s path to avoid it (due to pressure). When an object goes supersonic this doesn’t happen and the air is basically smacking into the object. (this is why fuel comumption goes waaaaaay up.)
If by “Connie” you mean “CV-64”, that’s about the same time I got a nice sonic boom demonstration aboard that same ship. My dad was stationed aboard the ship in San Diego, and there was a “Dependent’s Day Cruise”, meaning all us Navy brats got to set sail for a day, and get an airshow, complete with sonic booms, which were absolutely the highlight. I was standing right at the edge of the flight deck, just below deck level on one of the walkways, and the two things that stuck in my mind were: 1) how silent the approaching fighters were, and 2) how after they passed, the shockwave left the steel wall next to me shaking.
“this is a long count test of the ship’s broadcast system. 10, 9er, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9er, 10”