Boom Quieter Than Expected

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32392, 3 September 1970, Page 11

Boom Quieter Than Expected

(N.Z.P.A 'Reuter—Copyright) . LONDON, Sept. 2. i Government fears of al huge public outcry over supersonic booms from the Anglo-French Concorde jetliner today appeared unfounded. Britain’s version of the Con- J cordc made its first cross | country flight yesterday while: two million people waited be low. confidently expecting; both their homes and ear \ drums to be shattered. But the only trouble came 43,000 ft above the ground, when one of the Concorde’s four Rolls-Royce engines overheated, causing the test pilot, Mr Brian Trubshaw, to land on three engines. i British Aircraft Corporation j officials said that the flight, had been a success and the! overheated engine would not; delay test flights for the Concorde, which is due to go into service in 1973.

From every point along the 500-mile test route down the west coast of Scotland, Eng-

I land and Wales, people reported that the much-feared ■supersonic boom was quietei I —and less dangerous—than expected. Chickens on a farm in north-west England were reported by their owner to have been frightened into temporary sterility. A fluorescent lighting tube fell from the ceiling of a I Welsh village home. And in Scotland, scientists testing for boom effects, reported that two pencils, laid ; vertically on a window ledge, ’had toppled over as the Concorde passed. But Government officials refused to claim the lack of damage as a victory over opponents of the Concorde. Mr Jim Hamilton, chief of the Concorde project at the (Ministry of Technology, said that there would be no instant wisdom from this first jrun. “We might have to wait a day or two to see if there are any claims for damage.”