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Clear flight path

The photograph (right) was taken near Maldon, Essex, in the UK, looking directly overhead. It appears to show the result of an aircraft flying through thin cloud and dispersing it along its flight path. If an aircraft was responsible it had long since passed when the picture was taken. Is this a common sight and what mix of conditions is required to produce the effect?

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Categories: Transport.

Tags: plane, flightpath, aircraft, flight.

 

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Moderator says:

This is a relatively common occurrence, known as a dissipation trail or distrail.

Depending on the exact circumstances, one of three mechanisms may be involved. First, the heat from the aircraft's engines may be sufficient to evaporate the cloud droplets. Second, the wake vortices shed by the wings may mix drier air into the cloud, lowering the relative humidity and again causing droplets to evaporate.

Finally, the exhaust may introduce glaciation nuclei into the cloud. These are particles around which ice crystals form, causing freezing to occur. The crystals then fall out of the cloud. This is a very common mechanism, but the photograph shows no sign of falling trails of ice, which are known as virga.

The first mechanism seems to be rare and is not accepted by some authorities, so the vortex explanation is probably the most likely in this case.

Storm Dunlop, Chichester, West Sussex, UK

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Tags: plane, flightpath, aircraft, flight.

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posted on 2011-02-16 13:44:30 | Report abuse


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