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You know what’s dope? When Uncle Sam swings his big ole dick around for the entire world to see. Nothing gets my red, white, and blue freedom juices flowing like the United States of America flexing it’s military might. That’s basically what happened today over the Eastern Seaboard, one of the most populated regions of Lower 48.
The newly-introduced F-35C is one of the most badass warbirds in Navy’s fighter jet fleet. We’ve posted about just how badass it is a couple times before. This afternoon people from New Jersey to Connecticut — including in New York City — started reporting earthquake-like tremors on Twitter and Facebook. But it wasn’t an earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was actually the sonic boom from a F-35C test flight over the Atlantic Ocean traveling at super-sonic speeds.
Via Reuters:
A spokeswoman for Naval Air Station Patuxent River said an F-35C was conducting routine flight testing over the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday afternoon that may have created sonic booms.
The U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors earthquake activity, said no quake had struck. The agency reported at least nine sonic booms had been recorded over 90 minutes starting at 1:24 p.m. near Hammonton, New Jersey, about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Philadelphia.
A sonic boom is produced when an airplane travels faster than the speed of sound, or 768 miles per hour (1,236 kph). The sound waves can hit the Earth and cause shaking, which is sometimes mistaken for an earthquake, according to the USGS.
Test aircraft from the naval air station fly almost daily along the same route, according to the base’s spokeswoman, but most sonic booms are never heard on land. Certain atmospheric conditions, however, can make the sound travel.
Nothing makes me more proud to be an American than when you can FEEL something that badass. Why do i picture the fighter pilot coming back to a scene like this from his commanding officer?