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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

And if you have fighter jets buzzing by, the least of your problems is noise.

This could make more sense for jetliners, especially for late night take-offs.

Granted, this would help people who live next to active airbases, but noise form commercial traffic is a bigger issue as more people are exposed to it and are usually closer to dense cities.

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I live 1 km away from an air base (Misawa, Japan, for those curious). Just a few minutes ago a couple jet fighters took off. I don't really care so much, but they are loud as fuck. I'm pretty sure the whole city would appreciate quieter engines.

Parents live very close to Damiano but the runway is at an angle so they don't have it as bad as, say, people at cavalese had.

The article discusses many advantages to quieter planes. Including stealth, plane longevity, and health of the crew around the planes. It would be a big deal to the military to "instantly" have things be 1/2 as loud.

Indeed -- the only loser for a quieter fighter aircraft is the enemy. If fighters could be made silent, they'd be even more effective. The 'sound of freedom' can take on many interpretations.

A major winner would be the communities near airbases. Hornets, in particular, are quite loud.

https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2021-08-19/naval-air-s...

My dad flew ground attack jets in the Korean War. He said it was easy to sneak up on a target, as you were traveling close to the speed of sound and so the sound didn't get there before you were in firing position.

You only hear the jet after it passes you.

The ground crews at the target had to be very vigilant.

Audio stealth doesn't seem a big deal, missile won't lock to sound and by the time you hear the sound plane is already not there.

You don't think that the guardposts at the border will report the jets they heard screaming overhead in the direction of the nation's nuclear reactor or capital 1200 km away?

How convenient for them the jet flew so near a checkpoint. And how do they know they have to report something, if they hear the plane but can't identify it since it's long gone anyway?

Are they going to report anything they hear from any source along the whole border? Imagine the control center having to match every hearing with every domestic and recognized flight

I infer that you live in a nice stable country who isn't worried about foreign jets attacking their infrastructure and doesn't have their entire borders dotted with posts. I'm happy for you!

And by grace which ugly unstable country has the capability to do something to contrast the incoming jet in the scenario described?

Syria, Pyongyang city, and Iran come to mind. Go google the air defenses of those three locations before you downvote.

Further down on my list would be a bunch of nations bordering those three, a handful of African nations, and two or three south American nations.

I'm not sure if Taiwan should be on the list, as the People's Army does not currently have operational stealth aircraft.

no, I'm not googling things around, your point is that they have "people hearing planes" as part of their defense system, you provide evidence of your claims.

You’re replying like you think this is some kind of wacky idea, but it was literally what they did in the Cold War to counter low flying strategic bombers.

[citation needed]

instead of downoting provide some source you buffoons, audio detection in the cold war? it's up to you to provide evidence.

If you don't have radar systems detecting them long before the border guards hear them, then you can't do anything about it anyway. Accurate detection is the key part of any anti-air system - if you're sitting at the controls of an anti-air system and your first notification of an enemy jet plane is a call from someone who literally heard it, then you still can't fire anything at useful at it, and the only thing that you can do is walk away before your (apparently useless) anti-air system gets bombed.

I imagine a quieter jet also helps marginally improve its war fighting capability by making the enemy less aware of its presence, although

More importantly, as the article mentions it would also help protect the hearing of sailors, airmen, and marines that help operate those airframes.

Reducing noise from training runs would be welcome in many communities.

Yeah, UPS bought out my entire childhood neighborhood because of all the noise they generate. It did say in the article it could be applied to other jet engines. I'm guessing the military is bankrolling the research.

While we do have larger problems in San Francisco it would still be nice if the fighter jets buzzing by weren’t quite so loud.

From engines or from sonic booms? I think this is to make take off quieter for personnel and people in the vicinity of activity ANG/airbases. SF flyovers going after incursions occasionally have booms.

When was the last time a military airplane actually caused a sonic boom near SF?

Growing up in Kansas in the 60s, I heard window-rattling sonic booms all the time. I enjoyed them :-) I'm sure the pilots were having a good time, too.

Here's a recording of the F-35 making one in 2019, and this also serves as a reminder to all San Francisco residents that fleet week is coming up. I don't think they'll get these upgrades installed in time, which sucks for anybody that lives here that hates disruptively loud airplanes, however.

https://youtu.be/y30nuNFeQAo

There is no sonic boom visible or audible in that video.

Notice the gradual fade-in of the sound. That's not a sonic boom, those are a sudden pressure change with lots of sound waves packed together in a single wavefront.

https://youtu.be/1pf-Is2S1_Q

> And if you have fighter jets buzzing by, the least of your problems is noise.

Growing up in the DC area in the post-9/11 era fighter jets were quite a common experience. Except for 9/11 every other time there was really nothing to worry about. Obviously this might be different if you live in say Syria or Palestine.

They do need to train in the airspace. Would you want pilots unfamiliar with the terrain to show up when they’re needed in a hurry?

I assume they were responding to:

  And if you have fighter jets buzzing by, the least of your problems is noise.

I.e., they meant their primary concern with pilots familiarizing themselves with the terrain is the noise, rather than any risk of imminent danger.

When I lived in Germany in the late 60s, it was commonplace to see NATO fighters hedge-hopping over the countryside. My dad said the Germans didn't complain about it, they knew why the fighters were training that way.

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