Fri's Titan IV

Any guesses on where in the window it'll launch?
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LooseChanj wrote in message m...
Any guesses on where in the window it'll launch?

1:50 PM EST, on Saturday.

- Ed Kyle

On or about Sat, 14 Feb 2004 11:56:55 -0800 (PST), ed kyle
made the sensational claim that:
LooseChanj wrote in message news:
. ..
Any guesses on where in the window it'll launch?

1:50 PM EST, on Saturday.

Yeah, I kinda noticed. ;-) It was nice, too bad it was so cloudy. I got
an internet buddy to go with me, and he took some pictures. The rocket
made a whole in the clouds I made sure he got a picture of, it should be
a keeper. But the sound...wtf was up with that? It seemed to take *forever*.
Seriously, I think it took over a minute before the first hint of sound reached
us. We were just off 528.
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LooseChanj wrote in message .com...
On or about Sat, 14 Feb 2004 11:56:55 -0800 (PST), ed kyle
made the sensational claim that:
LooseChanj wrote in message news:
. ..
Any guesses on where in the window it'll launch?

1:50 PM EST, on Saturday.

Yeah, I kinda noticed. ;-) It was nice, too bad it was so cloudy. I got
an internet buddy to go with me, and he took some pictures. The rocket
made a whole in the clouds I made sure he got a picture of, it should be
a keeper. But the sound...wtf was up with that? It seemed to take *forever*.
Seriously, I think it took over a minute before the first hint of sound
reached
us. We were just off 528.

That's because you were roughly 9 miles or more from
SLC 40! It takes sound about 45 seconds or so to go
that distance, depending on temperature and humidity.

- Ed Kyle

On or about Sun, 15 Feb 2004 16:51:50 -0800 (PST), ed kyle
made the sensational claim that:
That's because you were roughly 9 miles or more from
SLC 40! It takes sound about 45 seconds or so to go
that distance, depending on temperature and humidity.

Yes, I know all that. :-P But I've lived here almost my whole life, seen
dozens of shuttle launches, (not to mention everything else) and this latency
struck me as extreme. Probably the longest I've yet experienced.
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LooseChanj wrote:

Yes, I know all that. :-P But I've lived here almost my whole life, seen
dozens of shuttle launches, (not to mention everything else) and this latency
struck me as extreme. Probably the longest I've yet experienced.


Well the Shuttles SRBs are far, far, larger than the Titan's; was some
of the effect on the Shuttle launches due to seismic wave of the Shuttle
reaching you through the ground before the actual air wave got to you?
Or was there an air inversion going on that distorted the sound path
between you and the rocket?

Pat

On or about Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:27:45 -0800 (PST), Pat Flannery made the sensational claim that:
Well the Shuttles SRBs are far, far, larger than the Titan's; was some
of the effect on the Shuttle launches due to seismic wave of the Shuttle
reaching you through the ground before the actual air wave got to you?
Or was there an air inversion going on that distorted the sound path
between you and the rocket?

That's what I'd like to know. With the exception of the two launches I saw
from the VAB area, and STS-1 which I have only dim memories of, there's no
seismic to my shuttle experiences. With the Titan, I suppose it did start
out quite low pitched, but I'm telling you man, the lag was incredible! The
rocket had already passed through the cloud bottoms before I got the least
little hint. I was ready to just start walking, figuring oh well I guess
the Titans just aren't loud enough to hear, when I heard what I thought was
the trailing off of any noise but was really just the start! I've already
noted it was an extremely hazy day, FWIW. Very cloudy, which might have
had some subjective effect...that thing hit the clouds pretty quickly which
meant it was out of view for good.

An air inversion??? Doesn't that require some sort of 3d terrain? We ain't
got that here! Heck, they had to pass a new law of physics to get the VAB
built! And if you think it's tough to get something through congress, you
just try telling Mother Nature her business!
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LooseChanj wrote in message .com...
On or about Sun, 15 Feb 2004 16:51:50 -0800 (PST), ed kyle
made the sensational claim that:
That's because you were roughly 9 miles or more from
SLC 40! It takes sound about 45 seconds or so to go
that distance, depending on temperature and humidity.

Yes, I know all that. :-P But I've lived here almost my whole life, seen
dozens of shuttle launches, (not to mention everything else) and this latency
struck me as extreme. Probably the longest I've yet experienced.

Here is a possibility. A check with Weatherunderground.com
shows that launch time conditions we

T = 26 C
Humidity = 57% (pretty dry by FL standards)
Wind = 22 km/hr from the southwest.

Under these conditions of temperature and humidity,
the speed of sound is 347.9 m/s. You were about
14.8 km from the lauch pad, so it should have taken
about 42.5 seconds for the sound to reach you.

But the wind, blowing pretty much straight away
from you toward the pad, would have subtracted
about 6 m/s from the ideal result, so that the
sound would have taken an extra 0.8 seconds (43.3
seconds), longer if the wind was gusting.

My guess is that the extra beat added by the wind,
coupled with the visual impact of the rocket
disappearing quickly into low clouds before the
sound reached you, were responsible. If, for example,
the launch had happened on a different Florida day
(say 30C/75% humidity, wind blowing toward you) the
sound could have reached you nearly 2 seconds
earlier.

- Ed Kyle