Low flying jet almost wacked me

[N017RW]

There seems to be a tail trailing from the rears of the two shadows, could this be the consequence of the refraction of the sun light through the hot exhaust?

Absolutely

 

[diverdave]

To clarify for sar104 question, My initial thought was that the jet shadow may had been photoshopped into the original video. I was wrong in my thinking. The photo that I posted shows a distinct shadow on the ground and what appears from the tail in the shadow is hot exhaust. The Thunderbirds have smoke generators, but they were not on at the time this photo was made.
As far as supersonic shock waves, as a plane approaches the speed of sound, often called Mach, shock waves build off the wings. At about .96 Mach there is a visible shock wave on the leading edge of the wing. A high speed jet does create vortices and can create the wind pattern seen in the original post and they do trail behind the plane. These wind disturbances can be sever and that is why there is separation of commercial airliners during takeoff and landing. I am not an expert on this stuff, but had a fair amount of exposure to it during my flying days.
Fly safe!

 

[Offroader]

To add to @diverdave:

Also, by definition, if anything (specifically an airplane) is moving faster than the speed of sound, there would be no indication of it approaching. There would be a sonic boom after it passes, more likely than just jet wash.

Isn't there some law/regulation that planes are not allowed to fly above Mach in inhabited areas?

 

[N017RW]

To add to @diverdave:

Isn't there some law/regulation that planes are not allowed to fly above Mach in inhabited areas?

Yes.


Published just last month, this can be found...

"Currently, U.S. law prohibits flight in excess of Mach 1 over land unless specifically authorized by the FAA for purposes stated in the regulations. The two supersonic rulemaking activities would not rescind the prohibition of flight in excess of Mach 1 over land."


Here:

Supersonic Flight | Federal Aviation Administration

Background The Supersonic Transport (SST) Concorde aircraft was introduced in the early 1970s. At that time, many in the aviation community thought that the time had arrived for regular supersonic air travel for passengers. However, the Concorde was retired nearly two decades ago because of the high

www.faa.gov

 

[jlrsn]

I got tired of reading all the replies but I never saw an F15 or F22 in the photos but I did see a flight of Vietnam Era F4 Phantoms!

 

[sar104]

To clarify for sar104 question, My initial thought was that the jet shadow may had been photoshopped into the original video. I was wrong in my thinking. The photo that I posted shows a distinct shadow on the ground and what appears from the tail in the shadow is hot exhaust. The Thunderbirds have smoke generators, but they were not on at the time this photo was made.
As far as supersonic shock waves, as a plane approaches the speed of sound, often called Mach, shock waves build off the wings. At about .96 Mach there is a visible shock wave on the leading edge of the wing. A high speed jet does create vortices and can create the wind pattern seen in the original post and they do trail behind the plane. These wind disturbances can be sever and that is why there is separation of commercial airliners during takeoff and landing. I am not an expert on this stuff, but had a fair amount of exposure to it during my flying days.
Fly safe!

RIght - it pretty clearly wasn't photoshopped. It also wasn't supersonic. I'm pretty confident in my previous estimate of the aircraft's speed to within 10% or so. Less confident in my height AGL estimate, but I think that's probably good to within 20%.

 

[Trackedout]

What was photoshopped?

My initial thought was this was photoshopped. Yesterday I happened to review some photos I made back in 1973 and came across this photo showing low flying jet fighters (F-4) casting district shadows on the ground. Details - we were flying Visual Flight Rules (VFR) across Nebraska, headed generally west. Altitude was about 300-400 feet. Pilots had to keep a good watch for radio towers because we were so low. Ground speed was about 600 mph. Photo was made with a 24mm lens. Thought you all would find this interesting.
View attachment 112778

Hey thank you for posting . That is very helpful and great photo.. by the looks of the detail in your shadows I feel as my shadow was a bit less sharper. I believe what I captured has to be higher than your plane from that. Btw why were you flying so low

 

[diverdave]

Times we a bit different back in the early 70's . All of the pilots had multiple Vietnam combat tours. Normally we flew at altitude under the direction of Air Traffic Control. If I remember this day, we were heading from Offutt Air Force Base in Eastern Nebraska to Colorado Springs. Shortly after leaving Offutt the Commander declared VFR and down we dropped most of the way across Nebraska. It had been pre-briefed. Basically it was wide open space over Nebraska and thats what fighter pilots can do, low level insertion to targets. So basically we did it because we wanted to do it and it was legal VFR flight, just like any pilot can declare VFR. It was a fun flight.