What is the loudest, noisiest plane you have ever encountered?

[stuartcox]

For me it's the Harrier on idle! Not the sound pressure level, but the frequency of the engine whilst taxiing. It hurts!

[Quixoticish]

For me it's the Harrier on idle! Not the sound pressure level, but the frequency of the engine whilst taxiing. It hurts!

I love the whine of an idling Harrier, I find it rather pleasing.

One aircraft I do find painfully loud not due to volume but frequency is the B-52, that really hurts my ears.

[stiz]

f22 on full afterburner .. that things LOUD!

[luckydog]

The Osprey is pretty impressive.....

[TARPSBird]

For the aircraft with the most annoying noise the S-3 Viking gets my vote. They used to park right above the Intelligence Center on USS John F. Kennedy and their vacuum cleaner engine noise (thus their "Hoover" nickname) used to really get on our nerves.

[PRB]

Well, when working on planes lined up on cat 1 when an F-14A is launching on cat 2, I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it. The F-14As had to use full afterburner to launch off the carrier, and the flame is about 50 feet long. And the sound ... you feel it more than hear it. Shakes your brain in your head and rattled all your (other) insides. Amazing.

[Dain Arns]

Not really the loudest or noisiest, but the early MD500's (369)...
That turbine just had that skull splitting, high pitched frequency squeal, least for me anyway.

[stuartcox]

f22 on full afterburner .. that things LOUD!
That is just nice! LOUD, but pleasent..., demonstrates the power!
It's like going to a night club or concert...if the sound is right you don't tend to realize the volume until you step outside...

[centuryseries]

SR-71 back at Mildenhall in '86

[Wittpilot]

First thing that came to mind was the Harrier... I remember Harrier demonstrations at the air show in Dayton when I was a kid... I think it was the only plane I had to plug the ears for....

As for riding in, Absolutely hands down the B-25........ My Gosh...that is loud!!!!

[Little Chacha]

F18 and P51 these really hurt my ears. I will ask Momma what is the name of the plane that is really loud, hold on.

[Cag40Navy]

F-16 - From the ground
F-15 - From the cockpit

[stuartcox]

SR-71 back at Mildenhall in '86

I forgot about her!
She did a great display in Farnborough when I was a kid!

[FAC257]

From an airshow standpoint I would probably say the Harrier. But there were two other demos that rank almost up there.

At the Sandford/Orlando Airshow one year they brought a B-1 down the flight line in dirty flight mode and then transitioned into a full after burner climb. I don't know if I could say it was louder than the Harrier, but I remember thinking to myself that I had reached my love of loud jets limit during that moment. That was easily the most amount of sound I've ever heard coming from a jet.

One other fly-by that stays with me was the F-14. At MacDill AFB right after Desert Storm they had an F-14 aerial demo as part of the show. When it made the wings folded pass, I don't think it was the loudest jet I've ever heard but it's the first time I ever had a high speed pass feel like it pulled the air out of my lungs. :)

FAC

[brad kaste]

...The Concorde when it made it to Oshkosh some years ago.......

[Moses03]

This particular bird from the CAF 2005 Airshow...

17299

[norab]

Concorde and Harrier, both at what used to be called NAAFEC many years ago

[Ferry_vO]

The Fouga Magister has a very high pitched, loud whine that gets annoying very quickly.

Tornado's, F-18's and F-15's are about the loudest jets I've seen at airshows. The Harrier in a hover is loud too, but mainly because it is stationary; other jets move away as quickly as they come so the noise fades in and out with it.

The Lockheed Constellation is very loud too, but that was because I stood less than 30 feet from the engine when running full throttle. :d The ground litterally shakes!

[TeaSea]

F4 Phantom on full afterburner.....

Last thing a lot of folks would ever hear.

[kilo delta]

F4 Phantom on full afterburner.....

Last thing a lot of folks would ever hear.


Just got in before me :)....the Spey engined Phantoms were pretty loud too...especially on low level training sorties in 1970's England.:)

[HouseHobbit]

The Concorde, and the Sr 71.. They both on take off scream like the dogs of Hell..
Very loud..OUCH..:jump:

[Willy]

After an airshow at NAS Norfolk, I was driving on a nearby highway and had a B-1 taking off very low over my car. Drowned out my high dollar car stereo and I had it cranked up listening to some Floyd.

[Cratermaker]

Vulcan bomber.

[Bjoern]

Eurofighter?

[HighGround22]

.
Aeons ago, I flew in the back seat of Grumman S2F ("Stoof") Trackers.

On carriers, getting ready to go off the cat, those engines would go up to full power and it felt like the sound of the props was shooting straight through each ear and forcibly compressing my pea brain as it rattled around inside my hollow skull !

Oh, did I mention I now wear hearing aids?

[TomSteber]

I'll agree, Concorde and the SR-71. Both we're quite loud on take off. But enjoyable to be sure!
And yes, the Magister does have a real whine to her when taxiing.

[deathfromafar]

Hands down, the SR-71 in full burner going out of Beale AFB. Unreal! Before I saw a Blackbird, the loudest I ever heard were F-4's, F-105's/106's, F-15's. The Thud and Delta Dart were probably the loudest single engine jets I've ever heard.

[OBIO]

The loudest jet I have ever heard was the B-1. I was out in the woods, sitting on top of a ridge, smoking a cigar. I heard this super loud jet...scanned the horizon. Nothing. Then I looked up...and there was the B-1 going nearly vertical right over head. I could see up all four engines and see the exhaust flames swirling as they made their way out of the engines. I don't know how high the plane was overhead when I first looked up....but I can say that it was the closest I have ever been to a running jet.

Off topic a bit: The closest I have ever been to a jet was back in 1988 at the Ohio State Fair. The USAF had an F-16 there on display with a ladder thingie you could climb up and look into the cockpit. Well, there I was on the platform looking into the cockpit...and the 2 USAF guys were WAAAAAY other there chatting up some gals in tube tops and Daisy Dukes. I made my move....I crammed myself into that cockpit just to see how it felt. It felt wonderful. About that time I was getting a good look at everything, one of the gals alerted the FlyBoys that I was in their plane...they came running toward the plane and I went running the exact opposite heading!

OBIO

[An-225]

An entourage of six Il-62s, an Il-76 and an Il-96 flying out of Sydney for APEC 2007.

[Roadburner440]

Definately would have to say the Harrier, and EA-6B Prowler.. We had one of our 60's get stranded once in Cherry Point, and I got sent on a team to go fix and retrieve the aircraft. First time I ever saw Harriers/Prowlers in real life. At idle not very loud so did not think much about putting my cranial on. Yeah when they took off I wish I had of put it on cause I thought I would never hear again after that.

[djscoo]

Three way tie between Harrier,F-15, and a B-1. All three caused physical pain in my ears.

The Harrier and F-15 were at airshows. The B-1 was this summer. I was working at a camp in northern New Mexico, and at least 4 B-1s and 2 C-130s overflew me as I was hiking up a canyon in a two hour period. One in particular passed right overhead as I was on top of a mesa, it was flying insanely low, significantly below most of the peaks in the area. There has to be some sort of low level flight path going through the area, because I experienced something similar when I was there 3 years ago too.

[Jagdflieger]

I thought the A-6 Intruder was pretty hard on my ears, but the Russian Ilyushin IL 76 may just be a tad more offensive.

Back when they flew Intruders out of Whidby Island NAS, there used to be a billboard sized sign showing an Intruder on the east side of the base the read in part "The sound of Freedom." I guess it was the Navy's way of telling passing motorists on Route 20 that the Intruders were LOUD. They must have been murder on poor deck crewmen's ears when they operated off of carriers.

I agree with Teasea that a Phantom in full afterburner going overhead is really, really loud, but oh what a sweet sound just before the high drags hit.

[Cazzie]

B-ONE! Bar None!

[Naki]

Harrier/F-18

[Emil Frand]

I worked catapults on a carrier, launched Tomcats,A6s and RA5C's and many other types, at full power with afterburners blazing it was impressive but the shrill and rumble of a Harrier hovering hands down is the loudest and most annoying sound Ive encountered from any A/C.

[mgchrist5]

For me personally, it's the F-14. I recall first hearing one on full 'burner at the Willow Grove NAS airshow back when I was about 10-11. I think the noise catapulted me into early puberty...

It's a pity (or perhaps a blessing?) we can't experience the "loudest airplane ever built"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H


On the ground "run ups", the prototypes could reportedly be heard 25 miles (40 km) away.


the XF-84H's propeller traveled faster than the speed of sound even at idle thrust, producing a continuous visible sonic boom that radiated laterally from the propellers for hundreds of yards. The shock wave was actually powerful enough to knock a man down; an unfortunate crew chief who was inside a nearby C-47 was severely incapacitated during a 30-minute ground run.


In one report, a Republic engineer suffered a seizure after close range exposure to the shock waves emanating from a powered-up XF-84H.

[LCBORDEN]

My personal experiences leave me to put down this list

1. Av8A Harrier, as it passed over my billet on take off....
2.any Space Shuttle as viewed from the viewing stand..your basic "BOOOM ROAR ZOOM"
2 .RA5C Vigilante as it did a low level pass over DaNang in full ab
3. same as above during fly by on USS AMERICA in the MED
4. RF4J Phantom flown by my OIC on a quick photo mission...he had a golf tee time and had to get his hurry-up on...he made the tee time, it took hours for the engines to cool down.the noise was at take off....
5. B-52H as it slow orbitted our Marine base looking for a runway it could use for an emergency. the pilot had the engines spooled way up....whew that was loud
6.B-25 from co-pilot seat as the pilot worked the engines up....a whole lot of vibration too...great plane though
7.F100 Super Sabre thunderbird flyby when I was a kid...
8.Any number of F4J phantoms as they cat shot off any number of carriers. Listening from above on the pri-fli catwalk...Hot too...as the ab flames shot over the deflectors...


Ol'Jarhead :wavey:

[Henry]

B52 just because they fly overhead all the time
A-10's are unique
H

[SabreAce]

For me, the one memory that stands out is my first airshow at age 8, and the moment that undeniably started a love affair. As my mother and I walked in, having just cleared the security checkpoint at the gate, a Tomcat blasted past about 100 ft up, having just taken off from the runway that ran parallel to the entrance path, and close. F-14 + full burner + that close = the loudest (and most beautiful) thing I'd ever heard or seen. Might be remembering the volume wrong, but it seemed even louder than the F-22 I saw last year, and that felt like it was ripping the air apart.

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Lots of military fuel-to-noise-converters already mentioned.

But what about the BAC 1-11?
When I was a kid, standing at the fence of Berlin-Tempelhof airport, it seemed to me the loudest thing ever imaginable!
You could almost hear them still when they were landing at Hannover half an hour later...

Cheers,
Markus.

[kilo delta]

Lots of military fuel-to-noise-converters already mentioned.

But what about the BAC 1-11?
When I was a kid, standing at the fence of Berlin-Tempelhof airport, it seemed to me the loudest thing ever imaginable!
You could almost hear them still when they were landing at Hannover half an hour later...

Cheers,
Markus.

Funny you should mention the 1-11. Many years ago Ryanair were equipped with Romanian built BAC 1-11's. One performed at a local airshow where the pilot did some fast and very low passes along the runway. As I knew the organisers of the show very well I managed to blag my way over to the runway edge to take some pics. I'll never forget the sound of those engines at full pelt less than 100ft over my head. Lost the pictures several years ago....but I'll always have the memories.

[Neil]

Jaguar or Harrier

[stuartcox]

Maybe not quite a plane, but a flying machine:
Eric Scott and his Rocketpack! Here's a display here in Eastbourne...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZajlonvDJk&feature=related

[b52bob]

When I was in school, someone brought one of the very early model jet engines (I believe it was a ram jet) and fired it up in the auditorium.

No one could hear for days.

[noddy]

Tornado, Phantom, Lightning and the Starfighter.

[olaf1924]

The lockeed C5A is one of the louder planes that I have ever heard. I can tell you that at landing or take off you can hear that aircraft for a couple of miles or more.

[Lewis-A2A]

Avro Vulcan, quite simply the loudest plane ever, that Vulcan howl, WOW! :jump:

[Txmmy83]

for me EF2000 Typhoon when flying with afterburner or a Harrier at takeoff

Best Regards
Tom

[traindriver98]

The loudest I ever heard was an F-106 taking off from Tinker AFB chasing a B-1.

[mfitch]

The Harrier doing its hoover demo at an airshow is the most painful sound level I have experienced.

The direction and timing, as commented in other posts, certainly have a great effect. The F-22's here locally are load but mostly when they turn their engines in your direction.

"Loud" can be rather relative. My father-in-law is retired Navy who worked many years at NAS Whidbey. Their house (still) is just off the final approach. When he was still active, if the EA-6B's came over the house, he would call the base to complain the guys weren't in the correct airspace on final. He knew the planes well, since he was once assigned in the back seat.

[Tom Clayton]

The B-1B used to rattle the windows at the base hospital five miles away from the runway at Dyess! Imagine living in the trailer park that was only a quarter mile from the north end of that runway! But by far, the most annoying aircraft I ever heard would have to be the T-37. At idle or taxi thrust, it produced the shrillest whistling sound I've ever heard. It made a chorus of a thousand screaming teapots sound like a lullaby!

[ibl19108]

SAAB Viggen was considered the loudest. Maybe still is.

[airtj]

When I was working out at SLC airport and marshalling in the feeder aircraft the loudest was the ameriflight metroliner followed by the boeing 727 and the douglas DC-9. I have heard a MU-2 from a distance and that is pretty noisy even from far away. I think the most annoying sound at the Reno Air Races is the jet drag car that has to rev it's jet engine just to produce the annoying cloud of smoke.

[Railrunner130]

I'll agree about the MU-2. Not only is it loud, it's friggin annoying. I crew the C-130 which is bad enough, but at least it's noise is deep enough to sound like it's got balls.

The F-15 sound is unreal. It beats out the F-16, because the 16 is quicker (around the airport that is) and only has one engine. I understand the F-22 and F-35 are worse. The one F-22 I saw flying wasn't that bad though.

[ericts]

The Oregon ANG F102s flying out of PDX were danged loud. I seem to remember the Convair 880 being quite the noisemaker also.

[willy spaten]

F-15 ... deafening....sounds like... a piece of paper being torn in 2 ...only 1,000 times louder:wavey:

[Odie]

B1B on takeoff. Close second: F/A-18E/F at low altitude climbout.

Most unusual: TF-104....sounds like a rifle bullet going by....unique to the a/c.

[Sascha66]

1. Mirage 2000 taking off with full afterburner

2. B1 take-off also with full afterburner and F4 Phantom

3. Six Tornados on low-level fly-by

4. Mig-21 fly-by

[n4gix]

But by far, the most annoying aircraft I ever heard would have to be the T-37. At idle or taxi thrust, it produced the shrillest whistling sound I've ever heard. It made a chorus of a thousand screaming teapots sound like a lullaby!

That's a very apt description, Tom. Several years ago the AF had two T-37's at the Gary/Chicago Airshow. I was within 100' of the pair when they started their engines at KGYY...

...I still cringe when recalling that high-pitched whistling screech!

[Aviator32]

Vulcan, hands down the loudest 'thing' I've ever heard


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZi3YN7mH2k&feature=related

Closely followed by the Buccaneer


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIqjKEm6n3Q&feature=related

[Sascha66]

You are right about the Vulcan! I quite forgot - I had the priviledge of seeing one some years back (at Farnborough, I think - in the late 80's, man, time flies, no wonder I forgot I'm getting old).

I'd love to see and hear a Vulcan again, a truly iconic aircraft!

[Railrunner130]

My wife!! :icon_eek:

[wombat666]

Jets. The Mighty Vulcan!!
We had one visit for a few of the RAAF 'Birthday' airshows in the early '70s and it was LOUD!!!
Piston engined aircraft, a toss-up between the Lincoln MR.30 and the P2V-7, both of which my Father flew, and the Neptune gets in only when it had two turning and two burning.
:ernae:

[CG_1976]

Darn An-124

[Whitehawk]

Loudest bird I see with any frequency is the Harvards at Ardmore, formation pairs takeoffs are brilliant!

[butchm]

B2 on full burner takeoff

[Pauke! Pauke!]

As a child, I thought the “Aluminum Overcast” was unbelievably loud.
:wiggle:
q3AG-JsjoyA&feature

[AckAck]

B2 on full burner takeoff

What? or is it the B-1?


Brian

[jhefner]

The one that sticks with me since childhood was watching Convair 660s with their Dart turboprop engines bringing my great-grandmother into the terminal at the local airport. In those carefree days, you could stand out on the balcony overlooking the terminal and watch the planes taxi in; the screech of those engines seem to cut right through me.

A B-1 made a low flyby of town a few years ago in full afterburner; and I agree it was loud. I have seen the Harrier and other military jets perform; while they are all loud; they all just seemed to be evenly both enjoyable and unbearable.

-James