Things that go BOOM! In the night.

[ttam]

So I'm sitting in my Airstream about 8:30 last night, relaxing after a hard day at work...

When BAM! Sounds like a LOG fell on the trailer! So I tell the buddy I'm chatting with on my computer "hold on, something just fell on my trailer...", grabbed the lantern and walked outside.

Then I notice that everyone else in the campgroung is doing the same thing!

Nuclear blast? Is Tampa going up in a big mushroom cloud and we just haven't felt it yet? Space aliens? Space... Hmm... I wonder... How about... Space Shuttle?

Sure enough, the Shuttle landed at Canaveral at 8:39 PM.

Back to the boob-tube and chatting. Mystery solved. Anyone else have an experience like that?

[jdalrymple]

Too cool. I would like to see a launch and recovery some time. The closest I have come to the seeing the shuttle has been the dishearting job of looking for pieces of Discovery as part of the recovery team in Texas.

Enjoy your permanent spot!

[Airhog1]

Wow...I'm glad to hear it was the shuttle...

I thought one of Bates' trailers at the "Airstream Ranch" might have fallen over!

Whew!

G

[rickandsandi]

One of the greatest sounds is the BOOM of the sound barrier being broken. As a young boy, we often heard it, these days never unless you are near a base. During my flying days with the US Navy, a day was never complete with out at least one good gut pounding sonic boom!

[ttam]

If you're ever in central florida, or along the eastern coast, night launches are clearly visible in the sky on mostly cloudless nights. I've never actually been to Canaveral for a launch, but just seeing the sky light up is very cool of itself.

And yes, I'm within sight of "Airstream Ranch". I didn't think to check to see if one of them had fallen over...

[ttam]

Oh one more thing - the buddy I was chatting with? He was in his house in Orlando and was doing the exact same thing that I was... what the heck fell in my roof? He kinda freaked out when he saw my message...

[Steve & Susan]

Last summer, I took a Boy Scout Troop backpacking at Philmont.
We were atop Mt. Philips one evening and heard an ever increasing roar.
We thought at first it was thunder, because there were storms in the area but it kept getting louder and louder - then DEAFENING.
It was a B1-B bomber flying LOW over the reservation with engines at full power to the utter delight of the kids!
That was pretty sweet, albeit NOT an AS moment.

[Jimandrod]

Originally Posted by ttam

If you're ever in central florida, or along the eastern coast, night launches are clearly visible in the sky on mostly cloudless nights. I've never actually been to Canaveral for a launch, but just seeing the sky light up is very cool of itself.

I've never had the chance to see a night launch, but I watched it from the beach at New Smyrna one morning. We coud see the shuttle in the distance and there was a distinct roar and rumble. Too cool!

[3Ms75Argosy]

Ha! Thought I was the only one! Two summers ago, we were camping in Malibu Beach, CA. I was dreaming, and heard the boom in my sleep. I really thought we had blown up! Once I looked around and noticed we were still in one piece, I went back to sleep. It wasn't til the morning when I was talking to other campers that I realized that all of us had heard it, and pieced together that it was the shuttle landing in the desert.
Sure shook the place.

As a child, I remembered when the jets out of El Toro USMC would go supersonic over Irvine (pretty sure they were F-4's then)..... that's when there wasn't much out there for people to complain about.
Marc

[thecatsandi]

Originally Posted by ttam

Nuclear blast? Is Tampa going up in a big mushroom cloud and we just haven't felt it yet? Space aliens? Space... Hmm... I wonder... How about... Space Shuttle?

Sure enough, the Shuttle landed at Canaveral at 8:39 PM.

Back to the boob-tube and chatting. Mystery solved. Anyone else have an experience like that?

Way back when the SR-71 was doing it record setting run from the left to the right coast. I was sitting in my living room watching the tele. I heard and felt a large boom. I went outside looking for a leveled house from a gas explosion. Later that day when I was at work my friends asked me if I saw the SR-71 land. Then it hit me. It was the sonic boom from the aircraft. The route was centered just five miles from my house.

[Foiled Again]

If you stay at the Holiday Trav-L Park in Virginia Beach you're nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and Oceana Naval Air Station. When the pilots are doing "carrier qualifications" it's bone jarring. There's a couple of spots near the end of the runways where you can sit and watch the planes come in.

We sometimes joke about opening the windows so the pilots can fly through the Airstream on the way to the runway. It's a real eye-opener for a first time guest.

Most of the time it's a loud roar, but occasionally you will get that boom from a hotshot breaking the barrier.

Good spot to watch the Blue Angels fly too.

Paula

[flyfisher]

This makes me think of what it must have been like for those campers who lost their lives as a result of the 1959 earthquake on the Madison River in Montana, just west of Yellowstone Park, when the mountain came down and covered much of the campground.

The earthquake began at 11:37 p.m. (mst), presumably shortly after most campers had gone to bed, and the epicenter registered between 7.3 and 7.5 on the Richter scale.

[REDNAX]

The last time I heard that was when the shuttle blew up. I was online on a car forum in the morning, heard that boom and was afraid one of my Dallas neighbors garage-mounted gas water heaters had blown up. I got out and walked the alleyway quickly with cellphone in hand. Turns out the shuttle had blown when it was several hundred miles away above Lubbock. Most of the pieces fell to earth east of Dallas in East Texas.

Growng up in Dallas we had nearby the air base CARSWELL SAC. Plenty of times in the early mid-60's we'd have some hotrod in a B-58 Hustler break the sound barrier en route to the East Coast. Remember being lined up on the elementary school playground when one shook past us. I told the kid behind me that a "hated" teacher had farted, "pass it back". Got caught, and went to the principals office.

[kposey]

When I lived near Virginia Beach, we heard the military planes breaking the sound barrier all the time. After I moved to Tennessee, I heard what sounded like the same thing. Was watching the news later that night and found out that it was an earthquake in West Tennessee! Imagine my surprise!