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Comment Re:Round two will fail (Score 1) 75

How loud a supersonic boom is it?

It's fairly loud; I've heard them while in a secure comm facility on the base. It rattles windows; some folks in the older houses have had their widows crack and even blow out. Also, it seems that on days with lower atmospheric pressure, it will set off car alarms.

Comment Re:Round two will fail (Score 1) 75

US Fighter jets fly subsonic over populated areas except for 'emergency' interceptions.

Bullshit. USAF's major depot for F-15's is at Robins AFB in GA. The final phase of the functional test flight (FCF) is a supersonic run...flight path is almost directly over Warner Robins; on a good contrail day, it's almost directly over my house.

Comment Re:Long Hours (Score 1) 255

They just did it as an emergency effort to get some aircraft that were near completion of modifications back to their units. After that we scaled back. If it had continued I'm pretty sure there would have been some really bad stuff. Working around a weapon system that has 3000 psi hydraulics and lots of moving parts to be operational checked. I actually saw one worker get caught in a landing gear door once during a period of long hours. They couldn't get the door to close and she noticed that a connector was loose in the wheel well. Without thinking she reached inside to connect it and "wham" it closed on her. She had half her body in there and it didn't go over center on the cam or she'd have gotten fully crushed. As it was she had permanent damage and was lucky to live. We had another guy fall off a jet but I wasn't there for that. He landed on some tool boxes and he never came back to work. He had only worked there a few months and I hardly knew him. It's an industrial environment much like a manufacturing environment in many ways. I'm sure if Tesla is straining that hard it's taking it's toll on their workers the same way. People will make mistakes and get hurt. Still and all, I loved my job. I'm retired now and I'm going to have to find something to do. My wife is working me to death. :)

I worked there for 18 months (pre Gulf War 1). I had moved to the avionics complex by that time, and had heard of (and knew) the lady that got caught in the landing gear door (wasn't it the MLG door?). Not to speak ill, but I never considered her to be one of the brightest bulbs in the string. I also remember hearing about the idiot who was using the weight-on-wheels (WOW) override while doing ops checks and radiated the hanger for over 5 minutes.

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