BRITISH EMBASSY BEIRUT na Kachelylie OH Kemmis Esq AS/CA2.3 NENAD NENAD Dept of Trade that the sfrena CONCORDE: REACTION TO SONIC BOOM IN THE MIDDLE EAST You will already have seen the letters from some posts hing we reporting on the reactions (or lack of them) to the sonic boom om ons generated by Concorde 202's supersonic overflight during the recent hot weather engineering tests in the Gulf. I did some gentle probing during my recent visits with Tristar to Kuwait, Bahrain, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Muscat: I have also done some investigation here in Beirut. I have also been probing for reactions to take-off and landing noise at the airports which Concorde used. 2. In brief, on airport noise, nobody commented too harshly although some people in Bahrain were surprised at being able to hear the engine noise in the town when Concorde's engines were being tested at the airport. The general view at all posts seemed to be that the noise levels were no worse than those of conventional aircraft of the 707, VC10 or DC8 types: some even said that they thought Gulfair's BACI-lls were ( noisier than Concorde! 3. As for the sonic booms, you will have seen that Oman was, on the whole, not too disturbed. I understand that in the northern areas directly under the flight-path there were com plaints that the children were frightenea" but it was not thought that things were too bad. In Abu Dhabi there were no reports of anyone hearing anything, either there or in Dubai. Nobody had reported anything in Doha and, of course, no super sonic overflight took place in Bahrain or Kuwait. No news of disturbance caused by sonic boom had reached Jedda by 28 Sept ember (when Tom Quinlan wrote to me - not copied) and there has been no reaction since so far as I know. I propose, this week, to ask the TAPLINE people if they have had any reaction from their staff at the pumping stations in Saudi Arabia and Jordan - they have not volunteered anything so far. There has been no reaction from Jordan but, of course, the track of the flight was a long way out into the north eastern desert. L. We come now to the crux of the matter - the overflights of nl Syria and Lebanon. Damascus' letter (21/3) of 17 September - the and their telegram(no 37 to Beirut.) of 13 September - both to me, copied to - reported a very loud bang and RESTRICTED
