Cows React To Boom

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32394, 5 September 1970, Page 13

Cows React To Boom

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) LONDON, Sept 4. Cows on their knees, chickens going mad with fright and other livestock stampeding in a state of shock, have dimmed the first optimistic reports after the maiden flight of Britain’s supersonic aircraft, the Concorde, over populated areas last Tuesday.

On Wednesday, headlines in newspapers proclaimed how much less noisy than had been expected, were the “bangs” which accompanied

Concorde’s 1100 - mile - an - hour sweep down the west coast of England and Scotland. The “Guardian,” Manchester, in fact, headed its story, “Concorde Boom Ignored by Cows.” Yesterday, it became apparent that the cows which ignored the boom were not directly under the aircraft’s flight path. The Pembrokeshire branch of the National Farmers’ Union yesterday passed on close to 50 complaints to the Ministry of Technology, including one that said the boom had caused a cow to have an abortion. Another farmer at Camrose, in Pembrokeshire, said that two of his cows had fallen

to their knees when they heard the bang, while at nearby Castlemartin, a farmer reported that his livestock were “in a state of shock” after the Concorde had passed overhead.

A poultry farmer at Wlston said that he was in the chicken house when the boom occurred and that “pandemonium ensued.” He said that dust fell from the roof and it took 10 minutes for the hens to settle down again. Mr Kenneth McKean, the Pembrokeshire county secretary of the Farmers’ Union, who forwarded the complaints on to the ministry, said that the sound of the bang was “like a shotgun going off in my ear.

“My wife and I were in the garden expecting the sound, and yet we still jumped out of our skins. We just looked at one another in disbelief. If we are to be submitted to this level of noise it will be impossible from a purely human standpoint, never mind the livestock,” he said. Mr McKean suggested that the Concorde should fly over the House of Commons to show the M.P.s what the sound was really like. ' It appears that the early ! mild reaction to the super- ; sonic booms in part came be- ; cause the Concorde was not ’on the exact course which ’ Ministry of Technology and ’ the press thought it would be i on for its first flight. The Concorde was due to ’ fly directly over St David’s Cathedral in Pembrokeshire. ' Instead it flew about 18 miles " to the east at a height of : 43,000 ft. ’ Besides reaction from live- _ stock, reports of other Con- ’ corde damage also trickled in , with stories of plaster falling ! from ceilings, broken winJ dows and tiles falling from roofs.