Often, when I look up into the sky, I see a long path of white cloud/smoke like exhaust that almost spans the whole sky.
Passenger aircrafts does not have this long, visible exhaust.
The vehicle that produce such long, visible exhaust seems small, I don’t know whether it’s because it’s physically small or it’s simply too high up. I assume they are very high up since you can’t hear them, unlike airline jets.
Just wondering what they are. Are they like military fighters or something?
Thanks
They are called Contrails and what you are seeing is more than likely commercial airline traffic. Basically what happens is the engines produce moisture which then freezes forming what looks like a trail of clouds behind the engine. This happened in WWII with the B-17 and B-24’s that flew at high altitude. Here is a good article on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail
When I was a kid (even before I started building models) my sister and I learned to differentiate between types of aircraft because of contrails. Here was our guideline:
If it doesn’t make the white lines, it is an ‘airplane’
If it does make the white lines, it is a ‘jet’
Hey - I didn’t say we learned correctly. [:D] Ah, to be a kid again - when things were so easy to understand. And we were always right!
They’re the dreaded Chemtrails! Evidence of the Government’s secret plan to get people to stare up at the sky, thereby taking their interest away from whatever it is that they don’t want us to notice now, like the recent and perfectly legal firing of US attorneys.
I saw something on TV where some people(in California) were complaining that the Contrails were polluting their air? If its just a result of moisture freezing then how is it polluting?
ah yes… the wonderful Californians… (no offense to our California forum members, it’s the rest of the Californians I’m referring too… tee hee [:D])
It ISN’T!! The tree huggers are over reacting again. Water vapor is a natural product of all combustion, be it a log fire in your fireplace, your automobile engine or an airplane engine, (jet or piston) or even your breathing. Depending on atmospheric conditions, that moisture may freeze and stay that way for a long period, (hence the vapor trails that go all the way across the sky) or it may melt quickly producing only short lines.
There are too many people in California, most of whom are breathing, so to avoid polluting the air, all human and animal breathing is hereby declared illegal and will cease immediately.
Grandma L
LOL [:D]
There’s a restored Nike-Hercules missile facility in the Marin Headlands just North of San Francisco that can be toured. The guide was explaining to the tour the battery’s role as a last-ditch defense against Soviet bomber formations coming to nuke the San Francisco Bay area which, back then, was quite a Navy facility and also had 4th ID.
Guide: “And as the missile flies through the air, the mechanical timer counts down so that hopefully when in the middle of the attacking bomber formation, the nuclear warhead would detonate, and destroy them”
Local Tourist: “Nuclear warhe… My God. What about all the radiation that would fall on San Francisco from an explosion only a few dozen miles away?”
Guide: “!?” (Speechless)
Me to Local: “How much radiation would fall on San Francisco if the Soviets got through and dropped a nuclear bomb onto San Francsico?”
Local: “Ummm…”
NTM
haha, I figured that was what it was. …Tree huggers [(-D]
Plants do a process called photosynthesis where they combine carbon dioxide, (exhaled by humans and animals) with sunlight and a little more. The by product is called oxygen. California tree huggers probably consider that to be polluting also, so maybe that needs to be declared illegal too. After all, if all humans and animals in the state stop breathing, then there will not be as much need for oxygen so it will become over-abundant and cause an imbalance in the time continume.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Well, this thread started out as a legitimate question. [:)]
And the question was answered.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Does this make our subsequent posts illegitimate? [:D]
An over abundance of oxygen is a terrible thing. It’s explosive and corrosive!!
No, our posts should get double bonus points for this. It is a natural progression (or regression as the case may be) on this forum. I’m sure I read that in the by-laws.
Oxygen is also a bad thing when welding the seams together on stainless steel tubing.
Godwin, anyone?
Oxygen is an oxidizing agent, and therefore bda for you! [;)]
As far as the firing of US attorneys, well, as long as Bush takes heat for it, it’s cool… [:D] whoops, I didn’t say that. LOL.
I’m a climate scientist and atmospheric chemist. There is evidence that airplane contrails (especially the ones that grow and cover a lot of area) contribute to global warming. I wouldn’t really call that ‘pollution’ though, and I’m certainly not saying that we should get rid of airplanes, but there is an effect.
COOL!!! I’m really getting sick of cold weather. I’m ready for 80’s year round!
from california and kindof offended born and raised in CA and treehuggers probably irritate me worse the the likes of yall who just have to deal with them on tv and newspaper articles
p.s. the ones that look too high for commercial traffic are the chemtrails, who knows what chemicals are in there but I figure if the government is releasing them they must be for my benifit