NWZ Posted April 9, 2009 Posted April 9, 2009 Last night I took these photos of all the aeroplanes coming into land at Manchester (about 45 miles from me). I'm no aviation nut so if anybody wishes to comment on why the aeroplane trails were so big compared to normal! Let me know what it could have been ! It looks as if they were dumping, their fuel over our house. The trails are never that big normally but maybe it was the calm weather that caused it? Quote
jim Posted April 9, 2009 Posted April 9, 2009 Last night I took these photos of all the aeroplanes coming into land at Manchester (about 45 miles from me). I'm no aviation nut so if anybody wishes to comment on why the aeroplane trails were so big compared to normal! Let me know what it could have been ! It looks as if they were dumping, their fuel over our house. The trails are never that big normally but maybe it was the calm weather that caused it? The weather may have been calm at ground level, but it looks like there were quite strong winds blowing at the upper levels of the troposhere (or lower stratosphere), which is where these aircraft would be flying. The large trails are probably the result of these winds dispersing the vapour trails quite quickly. Aircraft only dump fuel in extreme emergencies. In fact, only certain types of aircraft have the facility to dump fuel, even in emergency situations. Rather than having to lighten the aircraft by dumping fuel, most modern passenger aircraft can land over-weight at an airport with a suitably long runway. Quote
NWZ Posted April 9, 2009 Author Posted April 9, 2009 Cheers Jim! Makes a change from the flippin wind coming off the mountains into my garden at 100mph!!! Quote
3FIDDYZ Posted April 9, 2009 Posted April 9, 2009 Interesting.... And here is an explanation! http://ensign.ftlcomm.com/ensign2/scien ... rails.html was going to copy and paste the text but it may have looked like I knew what I would be talking about! Quote
NWZ Posted April 9, 2009 Author Posted April 9, 2009 Interesting read 3fiddyz! We laughed when it said looking up at the vapour trails with a pair of binoculaurs! mmmm, must put that on my list of toys! Very interesting to know what the weather is like up above though. Quote
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