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Comment by zeristor | Hacker News Reader

I remember at school at lunch time we’d see a Concorde fly overhead, just sort of got used to it.

Concorde used to fly over our house (landing at Manchester airport, I think?), and it was something of an event for our household of plane geeks, but happened fairly regularly.

These days I see Airbus A380s taking off and landing from Heathrow over the house almost daily and that never ceases to amaze me, mainly that humans built something so enormous that can actually fly.

Remember the Hindenburg.

Used to fly over ours too (Gatwick flight path?), and I always remember that sharp screaming sound.

I still watch the planes when I'm in the garden, but it's not quite the same

It marked the end of playtime at our school. We were 30 miles west of Heathrow and as it went overhead, still climbing from takeoff, it would have interrupted lessons.

It was usually pretty punctual, but every now and then we got an extended break.

So there would be thirty or so in your class, another thirty in the class below and another thirty in the class above. I am sure you were a noisy bunch, particularly at playtime, much to the annoyance of other residents of the street.

Now compare that annoyance level to that of the ninety or so special people on Concorde, or, more correctly, 'a' Concorde plane. You were thirty miles west of Heathrow, but I can remember being in South London and having to stop conversation for a few minutes for that stupid plane to screech overhead. Nowadays I learn that those were good times, to have that noise from miles away, making it impossible to hear the person next to me.

Until Concorde was some tens of thousands of feet in the air, cruising sub-sonically, that stupid plane was ruining everyone's day. All for what, Tony Benn's ego, 'jobs' and being best buddies with the old enemy - the French.

The need to be best buddies with the French was moot, after WW1 and WW2 it was clear that the UK and France were allies, at least in Europe.

We were lucky that the USA were a bit passive-aggressive when it came to Concorde, people would have had that thing fly supersonic but it wasn't in the economic interests of Washington (DC and the state) to have that.

Highlight of Concorde's career was Live Aid, bringing Phil Collins et al from the USA to Wembley so they could play both sides of the Atlantic, at the same event.

I am sure that people that went on a 'jolly' on Concorde for that special anniversary had their money's worth and a time to remember, but most people on that plane were pointless wealthy people that lacked purpose. In the bigger scheme of things, not one single flight of that plane was really important, even if Joan Collins was aboard. Your playtime, somewhere near where The Office was filmed, was far more important, in the bigger scheme of things.

I sincerely appreciate this contrarian take.

We are still not past this point.

Just yesterday, people in government announced their wish to build an additional runway at Heathrow. Noise will increase for over 300,000 people.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/heathrow-airport

When I was a kid, we lived near an AF base. I enjoyed the sonic booms, and was a bit perplexed at the animosity towards them. Thunder is a lot louder. My dad would laugh at my antics with a car, saying there was nothing like flying on the deck with the afterburner on.

I have a collection of back issues of Private Eye from the 1970s, and sonic booms seems to have been very much a live topic with the chattering middle classes at the time. In particular there are complaints that church windows [sic] had been cracked by a sonic boom, and there were other structural problems allegedly caused. I'm not sure how seriously to take the letters and articles, but you could see it was only a matter of time before supersonic flight would be banned over middle England.

Having lived in Kansas, the electric storms were much louder. I'd open the window to enjoy the booms. I'd see lightning travel from one horizon to the other.

The storms were great entertainment.

I think you might be looking for rationality where there's none! If the "right people" start writing letters to their MPs / representatives, the thing is going to get banned, whether or not it makes any sense.

A lot of family lived in Howard Beach, NYC just off the edge of JFK right under the flight path for the main runway. I have distinct memories of being in my grandmothers yard and hearing the Concords piercing roar as they passed for landing. I also remember being at a block party further south directly under the flight path and it was so horrifically loud I had to cover my ears from the ringing pain. They were absurdly loud vs the standard passenger jets. When the Concord was finally retired there were parties thrown all over that neighborhood. I lived not much further north and could hear them distinctly from my house as well but they were not disruptive. My uncle still lives in HB and the aircraft of today are much quieter and even my uncle recognizes that fact and appreciates it.

Heathwow is 15 miles west as the crow flies from where I was at university in central London. When it took off flying away from us, you could clearly hear it over the London traffic. Amazing aircraft!

I hope only the kids got used to the mindblowing event of seeing an airplane in the sky, and the teachers kept running away, screaming in panic every day even after 10 years of it happening.

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