I listed mine in the F-35 thread, now I'm curious to hear other stories....

Chris Tucker

An Ammo dump blowing up in 1968

RIGHT NEXT, I mean<100 feet from a gas well blow out.

Previously loudest was about 300 ft(quartering rear) from the burners of a pair of F-16's when they lit em for takeoff. The well was as loud or louder than that and lasted for many hours.

I heard HELL that day. It vibrated/shook my whole steel boat, it vibrated my freakin bones, eyeballs and who knows what else!

One of the reminders or educational moments I had in the Gulf of Mexico regarding the power of mother nature.

Probably ROK (Republic Of Korea) 8” self-propelled guns firing OVER us from a few hundred meters to the side while we waited to convoy from the position they’d just kicked us out of. These were the short-barreled M110 models, with no muzzle brakes, so all the blast went forward.

Operating an air hammer chisel under the right rear fender of a 1941 Willis Coupe without hearing protection. I only lasted about 10 seconds but my ears rang for 24 hours afterward.

An AS90 shoot, including a demonstration of MRSI. Not very close though - at least 100m from the firing battery's nearest vehicle at least and the target was on a distant range.

Less loud, less sharp, but closer:

A shoot by a 12lb gun in a display within the courtyard of a Victorian coastal fort at the Nothe. (Only a reduced charge (1lb?) and no shot, but in a confined space - sufficient to ring the ears and set off all the nearby alarms).

Also notable mention - a fire and explosion of propane tanks on the roof during a construction site H&S failure adjacent to where I was living. The fire was on the far side of the site, and I had a good view of events as they unfolded from a safe distance and got most of the excitement on film. No one was hurt, and damage was minimal, venting upward through the unfinished roof area... mostly just excitement and minor disruption.

A lightning strike on a pine tree in my garden, approximatively 30 yards of my house.

Not the loudest to my ears, but Nixer's gas well blowout story reminded me of another one...

Around 2005 a gas leak resulted in an explosion of a house in my city. It also demolished several nearby houses.

When I heard it it sounded like an elephant doing a "cannonball" into water 10 feet away - while you're in the same water.

Turned out this was seven miles away...

The "thump" was deeper and stronger than the ordnance simulations at the airshow I just saw - by far...

That's crazy. My loudest thing was a lightning strike 200 feet away. I was in a brick building. Within the space of 3 seconds I thought "A car just crashed into this building. No, a semi-truck just crashed into this building. NO, an AIRLINER just crashed into this building".

People were screaming over it. I was in a corner of the building closest to it. I wasn't even capable of having a reaction to it.

Damn NH that is one good looking piece !!

During basic training for the RAF we had a flyby by 3 Vulcan bombers in a low close formation, who all 3 lifted their nose and applied afterburners. I had no idea anything could be that loud for a sustained time.

Yes. Vulcan bombers. I'm that old

Deep Purple, 1969.

Yes, it was weird, I know there was thunderstorms around obviously, but we can't really imagine the lightning can strike so close to us before we experienced it. It took me few seconds to understand what cause this explosion that made my house shaking and my ears whistling. The lightning blown off the impacted point, and I found pieces of wood 60 feet around it. The upper part of a nearby tree falled few monthes later during a little storm with wind gusts not exceeding 50mph, it was probably weakened by this previous event.

These remind me of one time when I was working at a Bobcat dealer. I was in our wash bay because we were in the middle of a thunderstorm, installing a vehicle plug on a trailer wiring harness. Lightning was hitting trees out behind the lot (a couple hundred yards at most), loud but not excessively so, when all of a sudden there was a LOUD one and my elbow tried to bend backwards. Apparently I had a finger touching 2 contacts on the trailer plug, the lightning hit close enough to induce a current in the trailer wiring, and my finger completed the circuit. One of the other guys was leaning against the shop door and got zapped. So I guess technically I’ve been hit by lightning.

Either...

A Harrier hovering directly in front of me on the flight line,or...

A low flypast by a Concorde,a Vulcan and The Red Arrows in formation. That was something you really felt as well as heard. The Vulcan was XH558 before she was retired in 1993.

My first wife. Lol,joking. The Harrier was marginally noisier.

Harrier vs harridan, huh?

Vulcan on afterburners for me ... people were folding themselves up into the ground with their hands over their ears. Magnificent sight! (The Vulcan.)

Sleeping in the back of my van at campsite on Flour lake in the BWCA. Lightning hit the pine tree next my van and sheared off half the tree onto
campsite next door. Was deaf for a week.

Harrier hovering and taking off vertically.
Heard a few sonic booms in the 60s that seemed to go right thru my chest.