October
26
Why when I see commercial aircraft in the sky are they ahead of their sound?
Author: admin Category: 5
I know that commercial flights are not allowed fly at super-sonic speeds. If the sound is a few second behind the aircraft, hasn’t that plane broken the sound barrier?
If a commercial airplane is directly above you, it is probably 5 miles up. If you are looking at it from some other angle, it may be 10 or 15 miles away. The sound can take anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds to reach you, during which time the plane travels somewhere between 2 miles and 7 miles in a straight line.
If you can pinpoint the location of a sound 10 miles away you have some unusually good ears, but you would hear it coming from several miles behind the plane.
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October 26th, 2009
No. Light travels faster than sound. So you see the airliner about where it is. The sound comes from where it was.
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October 26th, 2009
No, you are quite a ways away from the plane maybe a few miles. Sound travels at around 800 miles an hour or less, so it takes a little while for the sound waves to hit your ear, therefore the delay from where the plane is to where you hear the sound coming from.
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October 26th, 2009
If a commercial airplane is directly above you, it is probably 5 miles up. If you are looking at it from some other angle, it may be 10 or 15 miles away. The sound can take anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds to reach you, during which time the plane travels somewhere between 2 miles and 7 miles in a straight line.
If you can pinpoint the location of a sound 10 miles away you have some unusually good ears, but you would hear it coming from several miles behind the plane.
References :
October 26th, 2009
they are pretty high up so that can contribute to the sound delay. but they DO NOT fly supersonic. the concord was the only commercial aircraft to go supersonic but thats out of use now.
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