Sonic booms in Florida

[yankeedoodle]

     Two F-15s fly at supersonic speed into Palm Beach airspace     
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/local/two-15s-fly-supersonic-speed-into-palm-beach-airspace/KMSQQOcUGf8WVQnooX5xyN/

Less than fourteen minutes.

That's how long it took for two F-15 fighter jets to fly from Homestead Air Reserve Base to Palm Beach on Friday night, a trip spanning about 110 miles.

Their mission? Intercept an unresponsive aircraft flying through restricted airspace above Mar-a-Lago, President Trump's part-time residence and Winter White House, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

The plane was one of eight private aircraft the Federal Aviation Administration said had violated temporary flight restrictions Friday night.

To get there as quickly as possible, the fighter jets flew at supersonic speeds. Assuming they weren't flying at maximum speed of 2.5 mach, or about 1,875 mph, the jets would have been traveling somewhere beyond the speed of sound — 717 mph.

Once they got close, they were able to inform the pilot of the unresponsive plane about the temporary flight restrictions, according to a spokesman for NORDA, adding that the pilot adjusted his course and stayed out of the area.

People on the ground below the jets' flight paths could hear roaring "boom" sounds and felt reverberating shock waves, including a man in Delray Beach who told The Palm Beach Post he heard the jets at about 7 p.m. from his car and that the shock waves rattled his windows.

The FAA said it would investigate each of Friday night's flight restriction violations and would try to educate local pilots about how to handle such circumstances in the future.