Loudest / more painful airplane sound?

[RyanShort1]

I know that there are book references to other noisy airplanes, but my question was, what is YOUR personal experience?

Saludos,


Tulio

On the GA ramp - the MU-2s take the cake so far. Hate it when one starts up or pulls in next to us.

[dhfan]

My personal experience is easy - Avro Vulcan.

In the mid 80s, when the RAF was still flying Vulcans at displays, they didn't appear to be concerned about airframe hours or engine cycles.

I saw several displays but the memory in my mind is of the Vulcan approaching from the right, throttled right back. Crowd centre, nose up what looked like 45° (but was not even close I presume) and add full power.

I used to say then the Vulcan was the only aeroplane that rattled your kidneys.

I wish I'd seen and heard (and felt!) a four Vulcan QRA scramble...

[seaknight15]

The scream of a APU in a CH-46 going 50,000 rpm

[Jack Cook]

Everyone's focus is on engine and they're not even close.
The most painful loud ear shattering noise made by any airplane
is the main gear on a AT-6 snapping in half during a ground loop!

[mazdaP5]

V-22 makes a really weird sound, those rotors are super distinct.

[airnutz]

Probably not the worst, by any means, but the little Hispano Saetta jet was a real screecher, a lot like the T-37 but even more annoying. I used to see Saettas at air shows back in the 1980s and early 1990s, but it's been a long time since I've encountered one. Someone else mentioned the Fouga Magister. The noise from them is pretty hard to take as well.

The Saeta, T-37, and the Magister are mentioned several times in this discussion and the common thread is they all share in one guise or another versions of the Turbomeca Marbore. I used to live under one of the approachs to Randolph AFB and a fella in SA years back had a few Saeta's he was messing with back then...definitely an irritating racket.

My personal worst was the total surprise of an afterburner buzz of an F-4 about 50 foot or so overhead..yikes! The English Electric Lightning at Dulles, and the B-58's on dusk scramble at Carswell were pretty brutal tho. As for the SR-71...not painful...but simply awsome with the Saturn 5-like crackle of the engines as it shot up vertical out of sight!

[Boeing666]

Most painful in my experience are the MS760 Paris Jet taxiing. Some would come to Sun N Fun Fly In at Lakeland Florida in the past and when they taxied by my ears would start bleeding. Hell I used to play in different heavy metal bands and stand near loud amplifiers, but nothing made your ears bleed like these things when they go by. They had a high pitch piercing sound. In that homebuilt section at Sun N Fun (before they put up that stupid fence) you would be just a few feet from the taxiway and was great for close up pictures. Had C-130s and that Eastern DC-7 (before it was grounded at CLT) pass by where the wingtip would be right over your head. Had F-15s, F-16s, F-5s, T-38s, T-33s, all kinds of prop warbirds from T-6s to B-29s pass by, MU-2s and various biz jets to every type of spam can to vintage props etc go by but those MS760s would destroy your ear drums

[airnutz]

I almost included the Paris Jet, but no one had mentioned it...yet another Marbore powered bird...

[Pogmusic]

We have F-35A, B, & C's here at Eglin AFB. Let me tell you, they are ALL loud. The B model with it's additional lift fan is probably the loudest of the 3. I the late 1960's, my dad took me out to the ramp to watch different, new & old aircraft take off. So, I was able to hear both the U-2 & the SR-71. The SR was far more louder then the U-2 was. I was about 100 yds from the threshold, in a blue Air Force sedan watching that. I remember when the last flight of the B-52D that was stationed here for testing. That was loud too.

[leo]

We get quite a bit of military traffic at Reno/Tahoe. We have had several U-2's (TR-1's?) fly out of here this year, which seems like a logistics issue but I don't know how they do an "away" launch and recovery. Anyway, though not the loudest, you can hear them forever in the distance, long after they are out of sight. Same down near Beale. We camp outside of Marysville in the hills and it's obvious when they fly out, sound lasts for ten minutes or more!

[bdk]

T-6 prop: 2250 RPM (600 HP) & 9'1" prop diameter (both maximums per the Type Certificate Data Sheet) yields 1070 Feet per Second (FPS) tip speed.

Under those conditions the air temperature would need to be 17 degrees F for the prop tips to reach the speed of sound.

Speed of sound is 1126 FPS (768 MPH) on a 68 Degree F day.

Temperature is the only significant variable in the speed of sound. Air density has no effect whatsoever and humidity has a very small effect (not worth calculating).

The air accelerating around the airfoil section of the blade near the tip may go above the speed of sound however because it has a longer distance to travel than just the tip arc. Note that you can have shockwaves well below the speed of sound (transonic).

"In the days of propeller airplanes the transonic flow limitations on the propeller mostly kept
airplanes from flying fast enough to encounter transonic flow over the rest of the airplane. Here the
propeller was moving much faster than the airplane, and adverse transonic aerodynamic problems
appeared on the prop first, limiting the speed and thus transonic flow problems over the rest of the
aircraft."

[flightsimer]

BTW, the physiology folks told us that the interior of the C-130 was the loudest place to be in the AF, probably like the cockpit of a Clayton-stack B-25. Incidentally, these days the worst noise in my world is the "huffer" start units used by the airlines when our APU is inop, holy cow those things are loud and operate at a pitch that is sickening.
Ken

I always thought the interior of the C-123 would be extremely loud because of how loud the engines were on the exterior. It shocked me the very first time I flew on it when I found out the interior engine sounds were not that bad. What was ear piercing though was the sound of those darn electrical inverters as they are exposed in the cabin.

On the GA ramp - the MU-2s take the cake so far. Hate it when one starts up or pulls in next to us.

MU-2, Turbo Commanders and C441's all suck. Those Garret's are loud no matter what they are attached to. What amazes me though is its only if you are standing in front of them due to the first compressor stage. Behind the inlet and they become tolerable, at least with the 441's.

[Ztex]

What?

Sitting in the navigators seat on a B-17 during takeoff...even with a headset it hurt...the rest of the flight was danged noisy...I don't know how they did it for hours on end.

Attachments

[Tailspin Turtle]

Sometimes when we were on ground run with an F-4 at Edwards, the Air Force would drag out an SR-71 for ground run and tie it down next to us. We'd just shut down and go back to the hangar for a break, because when it was running, we couldn't hear or think. The noise the engine start cart made was also incredible; at night, everyone on the base knew an SR-71 was being started.

[AFWhite]

On the flight deck, the EA-6B...thing would make your rib cage rattle and no amount of extra foam in your sound attenuators did anything for it.

Back on the beach, the Tornado. We lived next door to them out at Al Udeid, Qatar at the end of 34R and when those guys went to burner it shook the building.