How Far Away Could Titanic Rockets Be Heard

[Jesse D O'Neill]

How Far Away Could Titanic Rockets Be Heard and what distance were should they have been heard at?

I've Often heard lots of people say her rockets are very much like Fireworks. if this is true than 8 Miles would be too far for them to be heard (When I lived in Philadelphia we could see the fireworks, but not hear them, the neighborhood was Roxborough, which is 8 Miles from Penns Landing where Fireworks are Displayed Every Year). However at 3 Miles the Fireworks The can be heard (Distance of Where I Live East Coventry, to where Fireworks are Displayed in Downtown Pottstown), This however only Applies to the Very Loud ones(The Ones That Caused Car Alarms to go off and the Ground to Shake, this being w/ fireworks fired at 30 Seconds to 1 Min Intervals. They Are of course fired alot faster than that for the finally, hopefully thats spelled right)

 

[monica e. hall]

The Ones That Caused Car Alarms to go off and the Ground to Shake,

Good Lord, Jesse. I've heard the USA does things bigger and better, but I've never experienced this....

 

[Jesse D O'Neill]

Never Heard of That? The Car Alarms that go Off are those of the Cars close by, I've been told it happens due to shock effect from when the firework explodes about 600 to 800 Feet up. as for ground shaking, in better words when the firework explodes you feel the shock effect on the ground.

 

[Kyrila Scully]

I work at Walt Disney World in the Magic Kingdom. My store is at the exit of the Hall of Presidents and the fireworks are launched every night from behind our location. It sounds like the bombing of London in our store and we have to warn parents that if their children are frightened by loud noises, our store is not the best place to be during the fireworks. And when the finale goes off, yes, the windows shake and when I'm upstairs in the office I can feel the building shake. Even during the solitary fireworks following Cinderellabration, which occurs every hour, the guests in our store just about jump out of their skin when they go off. I frequently warn people near my counter to expect the explosion. (I can tell when it's about to happen by the music.)

I'm also 1.8 miles south of SeaWorld, and the nights I'm home, I can hear their fireworks go off every night exactly at nine o'clock. Can't feel them, though.

However, one may never know how far the rockets were heard from Titanic - there was nobody there to hear them except the folks on the Californian, and they didn't hear them (as far as I know) - but only saw them from their binoculars.

Kyrila

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Self-propelled firework rockets don't make the best comparison to the socket signals fired by Titanic. The sound of the 12lb charge in the mortar which fired them would likely have carried further than that of the small charge which scattered the stars at altitude. See Dave Gittins' explanation in this thread:

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5666/62583.html

 

[Samuel Halpern]

This topic came up several times in the past. The load report may actually have been from the charge that burst in the air rather than the one that fired it out of the socket.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

I must correct my reference to a '12lb charge', which would have been enough to propel Boxhall and Rowe into the heavens, let alone their projectiles! Lightoller estimated the socket charge as similar to that used in a 12-pounder gun, 12lb being the weight of the shells fired by such a gun. If he was right, then the charge in the mortar cartridge would probably have been around 2lb.

 

[Paul Wilkinson]

Hi Jesse,

There are a couple of other points to consider. The first, quite technical, point is that low frequency sound (like a "Boom!") doesn't travel well over flat surfaces like lakes or flat calm seas. This is due to something called the Lloyd's Mirror effect.

The second, simpler, point is that sound takes about 5 seconds to travel 1 mile. That means that, at 10 miles away, you'd see a flash then have to wait 50 seconds before the sound arrived. It'd be very difficult to associate the faint sound with that flash. I tried it watching a fireworks display from about a mile off, and it's really hard to match up particular sounds and sights with only a 5 second delay.

Cheers

Paul