Aeroplanes - Who's spraying what?

[Steve]

Hi all.
Has anyone noticed certain aeroplanes are leaving a trail of something that spreads over the sky on a clear morning. This doesn't happen every day but quite often. It's not your normal contrail that disappears after a minute or so. How can i find out what planes are doing this i thought. Went to a website called 'flightradar24'. It shows in real time what planes are flying in the uk, europe etc. Within an hour or two i realised what company is doing this. Quite amazing actually. I'm not saying who, just so you can see for yourself.

 

[Withnail]

It's not your normal contrail that disappears after a minute or so.

Depending on atmospheric conditions, contrails can last for hours and, as i believe i may have said before, are classed as a cloud form.

In fact, there is some suggestion that they have an effect on the earth's climate. But i digress...

 

[joshua]

Ah the notorious chemtrails: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

 

[Withnail]

Do you remember when the planes were grounded by the Icelandic volcano?

Someone on here (db?) was stranded somewhere if i recall correctly - however, there was a video posted of the air traffic at the time of the flight ban going into the restart of scheduled flights that was quite something to behold.

I'll see if i can find it...

 

[Withnail]

Here it is,

 

[shoes]

That goes to show what a good job the people who co-ordinate air traffic do, and how accurate they must be to avoid mid ait collisions!

 

[Withnail]

Case in point - contrail currently stretching from Arcturus to Spica, Saturn just below.

A contrail that has been there for a while - no doubt dispersing 'stupid' gasses to the dumbfounded below...

 

[Mikinton]

In fact, there is some suggestion that they have an effect on the earth's climate. But i digress...

I think this has been quantified to some extent.

I remember seeing a programme on the telly about some analysis they'd done in the States of September 11/12th 2001 when, of course, the Americans had cancelled all their flights.

 

[staffordjas]

Went to a website called 'flightradar24'. It shows in real time what planes are flying in the uk/europe etc quote]

That goes to show what a good job the people who co-ordinate air traffic do, and how accurate they must be to avoid mid ait collisions!

Looking at www.flightradar24.com certainly highlights how many planes are up there at any one time and what a good job the air controllers and pilots do.

I was once lucky enough to pay a visit to the cockpit during a flight back from Tenerife. It was during a Portugese Air-traffic controllers strike and everything was having to queue up and circle around before flying over spanish airspace - VERY scary seeing how many planes there was above,under,besides us. The Spanish air-controllers were telling our pilot to go to a certain altitude etc and he was disagreeing with them because he could see it wasn't safe enough We were sent back to our seats while he 'concentrated'.Amazingly from the cabin we couldn't see any other planes out there,but it was terrifying knowing how many were actually in such close proximity.