Perestroika posted:

Speaking of loud planes, how about the XF-84H? It was nicknamed "Thunderscreech" for reasons that are about to become obvious:


It was a turboprop and was kind of an experiment to see just how far you could push a propeller with modern engines. The result is a plane where the propeller spins at supersonic speed even when idle. So this thing emanated a sonic boom even when it was just chilling on the runway warming up. It was so loud that it could be heard from 40 km away. It was so loud that it once incapacitated somebody in an entirely different plane on the same airstrip. It was so loud it actually caused a seizure in somebody who was too close when it was on full power.

As for its actual performance, it didn't turn out too well. It was ludicrously fast, but also severely unstable, to the point where test pilots outright refused further flights. Besides, there wasn't all that much point to it aside from bragging rights. A regular jet-powered plane could do pretty much the same without loving up your entire ground crew every time it exited the hangar.