Word: sonics
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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Like hundreds of other U.S. towns, Deerfield has become an unwilling part of a supersonic age. Jets from Westover Air Force Base, 25 miles to the south, blur past overhead-and lower the sonic boom on peaceful Deerfield. "Why can't they go out over the ocean if they want to break the sound barrier?" asks a local schoolteacher. His complaint is as familiar on the West Coast as on the East. And in the last three years, more than 1,000 civilian damage claims, seeking more than $500,000, have been filed against...
...nothing more than the point at which the noise is turned on. Air is a fluid, and, above the speed of sound (about 760 m.p.h.), it reacts much like the surface of a lake when a speedboat rips across it: waves go out and roll toward land. The sonic boom occurs when the shock wave from a jet hits the nearby ground. It follows the plane wherever it goes, and the pressure may make a sound equal to ten thunderclaps...
...nerves, a webwork of highways that crisscross for 220,000 miles in all directions, including ever-higher altitudes. Moreover, the dawn of the commercial jet age - with 94 jet transports already in U.S. airline service, and about 150 more due by year's end - with its near sonic speeds and bigger loads, has compounded all of the vast problems of the Air Age with unparalleled force...