[Leica] Re: XB-70 and B-58 and?

[ISILVERMN at aol.com (ISILVERMN@aol.com)]

Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:54:50 -0400, From: Marc James Small 
_marcsmall@comcast.net_ (mailto:marcsmall@comcast.net)  wrote:
 
"When I was three we lived in the City of Lost Angles.  One day, my  father 
took the dog for a walk and I went along.  There was a heavy  rumbling in 
the 
distance and Dad stopped to look up.  I did to:   overhead flew a flight of 
six 
B-36D's with those "six turnin' and four  burnin'".  Dad, who began his 
flight instruction in biplanes, just  grinned.  Later, when I was in 
Pittsburgh, I 
got to see B-58's flying  overhead, and impressive it was.  Then we moved 
West 
again, though to the  Bay Area and lived in northern Marin County in Novato, 
just outside what was  then Hamilton AFB.  The F-106's from Air Defense 
Command used to come in  and drop subsonic over Novato, just to make the 
windows 
rattle a bit.  They  did this 24/7 but you got used to it after a while."

Living in New York,  I never had the opportunity to see a B-36, B-58 or 
XB-70 
in flight, although in  the years since I have seen and heard both B-52's 
and 
SR-71's at low  altitude.  They are loud, but...
 
When I was about 12, I was with my father making a service call on Long  
Island, and we were driving up Route 110 in Farmingdale when the ground 
began to  
vibrate, and a sound that could only be described as apocalyptic erupted.   
A 
combination of low frequency rumble and high frequency whine that was just  
plane, incredibly LOUD.  We looked up to see two Republic F-105D  
Thunderchiefs 
that had just taken off in full afterburner from Republic airport,  and 
which 
passed over us at an altitude of maybe 50 feet.  We pulled off to  the side 
of 
the road, waiting first for the ground and then  for ourselves to stop 
shaking before continuing.
 
To this day, I've never heard a sound quite like that.
 
Best Regards,
 
Ira Silverman
Irvine, CA




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