Sonic booms in central Kansas

BARTON COUNTY, Kan. (KSNW) — People in central Kansas may hear sonic booms on Wednesday and Thursday. A Hoisington man told KSN News he had already heard a couple of the booms, and they shook his whole house.

When we called Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir, he had just spoken to officials at Wichita Eisenhower National Airport. They told him the Air National Guard based in Tulsa is operating in the area through Thursday, and one or more of their planes went supersonic.

A sonic boom happens when a plane travels faster than the speed of sound, about 750 miles an hour at sea level.

“An aircraft traveling through the atmosphere continuously produces air-pressure waves similar to the water waves caused by a ship’s bow,” the Air Force says. “When the aircraft exceeds the speed of sound, these pressure waves combine and form shock waves which travel forward from the generation or ‘release’ point.”

In 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Kansas Department of Transportation signed a deal to allow supersonic test flights over Kansas . The Kansas Supersonic Transporation Corridor is an 886-mile invisible racetrack. The planes fly at or above 39,000 feet, 7.3 miles above ground, in federal airspace.

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