Sonic booms from Eurofighter aircraft testing

I work near Leoplodstrasse and heard a loud bang about 30 mins ago, does anyone know what it was?

My colleague heard it over here in Berg am Laim.

Building shook, windows rattled a bit, but really wasn't out of the ordinary. I think that is about the dozenth time in the past two years that I have been at GSF that that has happened. Everyone there says that it has been going on since they started building the new stadium and access roads.

We get warnings about the unexploded ordinance that they find by the old Munich airport, as well as the army practicing their shooting and blowing things up skills, but nothing mentioned for today.

We heard it in Neuhausen too!

does anyone know actually what that was? It sounded very local to Leopoldstrasse where I work.. I got soldier firecrackers and stadium blasting but this didnt sound like either...

Nothing on the local news at 12:30
???

I think I heard this same noise. I was at the Aumeister beer garden (north end of Schwabing) shortly before midday. No idea what caused the explosion but it made me jump. Maybe they found another UXB at the stadium site?

yep, i heard it too on Barerstrasse in Schwabing.

I live in a tiny village about 45 minutes south of Munich and I, too, heard the boom this morning. Must have been something pretty big.

I work in Allach which is in north-west Munich. I heard some kind of a loud bang this morning, but I'm not sure it was the same thing you guys are talking about. It didn't sound like an explosion, it was simply an unusually loud bang. Did you guys feel the ground shake or something, or why do you call it an explosion?

Could it have been a supersonic plane over Munich breaking the sound barrier?

bogenhausen reporting in: also heard noise.

Didnt hear it down here in Rosenheim unfortunatley, but that was no doubt because I had the stereo too loud.

Guess the sound proofing in our windows works well. I heard nothing.

Unterfoering reporting in (north-east munich). Heard it too, quite loud.

I heard it also, same time, while at work in OlympiaDorf(next to OlympaZentrum U-Bahn stop). Usually, when I heard that, I think it's the people across the street at the BMW plant dropping something really big and heavy(!?)

Well, never heard anything in Pullach, although this is quite far to the south end of Munich.

I was asleep when Stoiber was conducting his nuclear tests.

any idea what is was then?

We quite often get loud bangs during the day up here in Oberschleißheim from US Air force fastjets going through the sound barrier so it was probably a sonic boom. They can sound like a loud, distant explosion sometimes.

Or perhaps those Kim Il Sun (sic) is doing some more building work?

I'm pretty sure it was a sonic boom. The air forces are allowed to break the sound barrier only at certain times. Last week (in Odelzhausen - direct in the flight path) we had 3 of them. They scare the shit out of you because they are completely unexpected - you don't hear the jet until after the boom.

Eurofighter often do supersonic testing north of Munich - sometimes their navigation is a bit out

Except for international exercises I don't think the US planes have any common flight path this far over...

YL6

Correct. It was a Fighter Jet breaking the sound barrier. Used to get it a lot in Augsburg.

Another fine and a warning for the Luftwaffe no doubt...

Update by admin: Sonic Booms over Munich

Was that another sonic boom just now, or was it something local here in Allach? Anyone else hear a loud bang?

I am right now in Erding and could hear it as well

I heard it as well out here in Lohhof. Spooky.

heard it in FFB too...

Yep. Sonic boom.

I am alright now... I have clean Boxer shorts on.

The van shook so badly, I thought that someone had run into me.

G

Am I sleeping on the job or what? I didn't hear a thing!

It wasn't that dramatic.

It was loud and shook the house here in Bobingen near Augsburg. I had to run and check on my kids. I thought they had blown something up!

That would make it probably two separate booms then-sonic or otherwise. What I heard hear was not so loud.
I used to live north of Augsburg for about two years (just after 9/11). We had fighter jets flying over every day and were annoyingly loud, but never heard a single sonic boom. The last confirmed sonic boom that I heard would have been when I was in the Navy and stationed at a Naval Air Station.

Sorry I had a curry last night, I am bit windy...

They are blowing things up again. Definitely not a sonic boom as the pressure just changed from the wave.

There was a double blast today near Augsburg, not a sonic boom. I wonder what is being blown up.

If you've been hearing loud bangs in Munich this week it is likely that these were sonic booms, caused by aircraft breaking the sound barrier. Apparently Eurofighter have been assigned 14 days to carry out super-sonic test flights in the Munich area. They're also testing cold-weather take-off and landings.



A sonic boom is caused when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound (around 1200 km/h). Two objects which commonly do this are military aircraft and meteorites. Before the mid-1980's sonic booms were commonly heard throughout Germany. Nowadays there are rules and regulations designed to prevent them. Aircraft may only break the sound barrier Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm, and not during the midday 'quiet hour' from 12.30pm to 2pm. Also, the sound barrier may only be broken at an altitude between 10.8 and 15 thousand meters. At this height the sonic boom is usually unnoticably faint by the time it reaches ground level.



Jets from the Lagerlechfeld airbase near Augsburg are notorious for causing sonic booms in the area. The new Eurofighter is usually test flown out of Manching Airbase near Ingolstadt, 40km north of Munich. It's not known which of these two airbases is responsible for the recent series of sonic booms heard over Munich.

See related pages on TT:

• A guide to sonic booms over Munich
• Sonic booms heard around Munich in December 2004

Did anyone hear a loud bang at about 10:11 (4 mins ago)? Our whole building just shook and we cannot decide if it was local to the building or a bigger more general "outside" bang.

There was a similar but less intense one yesterday.

Yep, I did and I am out in Unterschliessheim. Same thing as yesterday.

Just heard one here a few minutes ago. Siemenswerke (south part of Munich)

Yup, made my windows rattle (Gern) and NEARLY made me do number twos in my trousers

i heard it in Maillingerstr. thought it was thunder at first but then thought some road work was going on. NO clue what it is.

Eurofighter or Tornado breaking the sound barrier..

I heard it on Ridlerstr in Westend.

There was discussion about this around the same time last year...

Massive bang as I was cycling out from Garching to the Institutes at what must have been the same time. Sounded like two shots going off bloody close, although I guess the second could have been a reverberation.

@SIM: And the answer is???

I work in Liam and I heard it!

Heard it in Allach. It was a sonic boom.

It was heard in Augsburg as well. That is about the 5th one this month

OK it's not just me then!

Guess it musta been the fighters playing naughty..

Heard it here in Giesing, too. Rattled the windows like crazy. Was hoping somebody would post about this... am very curious now!

Legally they can do it between 8am and 8pm at above 10,000 feet i think