bomb testing....?

[jack fish]

i am hearing what i assume are bombs being tested from eglin air force base. does anyone know any details as to what is going on over there? is it safe.....ever any strays? is there any rhyme or reason to it? some of them shake my house so hard, i think the windows are going to pop out of their frames. hmmmmm?

 

[sunspotbaby]

new here? to beaches & bombs. I have no idea what they do, there is no "schedule" as far as I know , never heard of any "strays".

I'm more worried about all the little cesna planes flying overhead and gliding around than stray bombs. :shock:

Make sure all your pics are hangin' on the wall in a sturdy fashion.

P.S. you can't feel the rumble when you're driving.

 

[Camellia]

My understanding is that the majority of noises we hear are sonic booms, and not artillery practise. Can anyone who is more knowledgeable give us a tip as to how to distinguish between the two?

 

[ShallowsNole]

Strays are rare, but the last one the AF couldn't deny was 15? 20? years ago - IIRC, a drone fired from out in the Gulf landed near Black Creek. Or maybe it was a drone fired from the reservation was supposed to land in the Gulf, but it landed near Black Creek. In any event, it happened near Black Creek.

Family folklore has it that, approximately 50 years ago, bombing practice got their coordinates turned around and started dropping flare bombs around our house near PointW. 7 or 8 flares later, they figured it out but not before my parents and brothers went into oh-sheet mode.

And, during or near WWII time, a family on the back side of Coy Burgess Road lost several members due to a bomb being dropped in their yard instead of two miles away on Eglin's reservation.

I sure that's way more information than you needed, and certainly more than you wanted. Sorry, I'm bad about that.

 

[Will B]

My understanding is that the majority of noises we hear are sonic booms, and not artillery practise. Can anyone who is more knowledgeable give us a tip as to how to distinguish between the two?

It's easy...

It's against the law to exceed the speed of sound over land. There probably hasn't been an intentional sonic boom in Sowal in more than a couple decades. The military operating areas north of Sowal are too small to be run at supersonic speeds; however, they can do it out over the gulf. Typically, going supersonic is not something that is done with any regularity as it eats up tons of fuel to get there unless you are flying the newer F-22's.

But...to answer your question.

Sonic booms come in two quick booms literally right on top of each other in very quick succession...B O O bM o o m. Every time I have been down there when the walls were shaking it was ordinance testing north of the bay. You can call the base commuity affairs office, and they will tell you if testing is going on.

30 years ago or more we used to get sonic booms all the time, but that all ended with the regulation about exceeding the speed of sound over the ground.

 

[sunspotbaby]

Thanks SN & SC for these very informative posts.

 

[beachmouse]

The Air Force admits a public 'oopsie' about once every 3-4 years. Typically they're small items that land fairly close to base proper, like a small drone that landed on someone's roof with no ill effect, but a couple years back, they did drop a plane on someone's house in Valparaiso when the pilot had an emergency just short of the north-south runway.

Also, there's a ton of buried munitions in the area because the Panhandle has been used for military training essentially since the Spanish first made landfall. Most of it is inert. But if you do find something that looks like a bomb, Civil War cannonball, etc. Please leave it in the exact spot you find it, move a safe distance away, and call 911 and let the nice fellows at the Navy bomb squad handle it on site. Do NOT put it in the back of your pickup and drive it to the fire station. (Which seems to be the normal plan of action in these parts when someone finds something)

 

[TreeFrog]

They have some sort of ordinance test range at Eglin. They frequently shoot off stuff on Monday mornings, although recently they've done it on other days. Scares the s**t out of my dog.

 

[30ashopper]

You can often hear it the clearest early in the morning on sunny days during the winter. The sound gets trapped in the temperature layer above the bay. It's pretty neat, but it sure can shake the crap out of your walls when the big ones go off.

 

[TreeFrog]

BTW, the last good sonic boom I heard in SoWal was when the shuttle flew over on its way in to land. Coupla years ago now, maybe three.