"Jets & Clouds" Effects
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 "QUANTUM SHOT" #196Jets, Contrails and Condensation Clouds: a new dance in the sky More and more high-altitude vapour trails appear in the skies, as the flight density of commercial aviation increases. They follow the jet straight and narrow, but then degrade into fuzzy formations, blending as one with the clouds and into our subconscious. We almost do not notice them any more. The following photos show, however, that even the common engine's exhaust contrail can be worth a second glance.  Contrail, or "Vapor Trail", forming at high altitudes. Contrails generated by engine exhaust are, of course, linked with pollution, but the visible white streams in the sky made from plane's "wing-tip vortices" are essentially ice crystals and pure condensation trails. "Being composed of water, the are not, in and of themselves, air pollution."(wiki)    (images credit: Laurent Malbecq) USAF F-15 Eagle Fighters Intercept Two Soviet MiG-29 Fighters:  (image credit: Staff Sgt. Kevin L. Bishop, USAF)  (image credit: Strange Vehicles) "Fly me to the Moon"  (image credit: Barry McGrath) ...or out of the Sun  (original unknown) Some shooting (or launching decoys) also produces interesting trails:    The amazing cloud "downwash effect" from a passing jet plane:  (image credit: Strange Vehicles.com)  (image credit: Daniel Koury)   (images credit: Checksix-forums) Breaking the Sound Barrier: Transonic Cloud Effects Going over the sound barrier produces one of the most amazing condensation effects - so called "Prandtl-Glauert Condensation Clouds", formed by the rapid cooling of the air. You have to be really quick with your camera "trigger" to capture it, as it only occurs at the sonic barrier. This page has many photographs and videos of this phenomena. F/A-18F Super Hornet streaks past the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk in the Philippine Sea:  (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Chandler) Skilled pilots can actually control where this cloud appears: "It is possible to work the plane's throttle to move the shock wave forward or aft." (source)  (U.S. Navy photo by Ensign John Gay)  F-14 completes a super-sonic flyby:  (U.S. Navy photo by Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jarod Hodge)     Rainbow on the Clouds Perhaps the most sublime is the rainbow/shadow combination, forming on the vapor and clouds around a passing jet.  (original unknown)  image credit: Jeff Well, Airliners.net Send us your own captures of jet trails and cloudscapes - such high-altitude photography might help you pass the time during a long flight, while giving you opportunities for some truly magnificent shots. CONTINUE TO NEXT PART: "Firing Flares" Permanent Link...  Category: Airplanes,Photography Related Posts: Stunning In-flight Photography, Lenticular Clouds Gallery Dark Roasted Blend's Photography Gear Picks: |
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7 Comments:
"F/A-18F Super Hornet completes a super-sonic flyby:"
To me it seems to be the F-14?
At least definately no Super-Hornet.
Hello.
First of all, your blog is very good.
It´s not a F-18 super hornet. It´s a F-14 (wacth the rest of the photos, the diference is noticeable), and there is an aditional reason for the vapor contrail: at certain altitude there are air zones of very low temperature (-X ºC), so the condensation is another reason.
Hey guys, thank you for correction! .. Sharp eye!
Actually the disk shape and most of the other photos; these weird clouds occur when the aircraft is moving at transonic speed- these are from about Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.2, and I suspect that none of these aircraft are actually going faster than mach 1.0 in fact for practical reasons. (The shapes are caused where the *air* is *temporarily* forced to speed up past the aircraft to supersonic speeds, but since the aircraft is moving below the speed of sound, no sonic boom reaches the ground.)
Also the bit about the throttle is a bit misleading, it's the speed of the aircraft that determines where the disk forms (of course the pilot adjusts that using the throttle, but there's a lag since it takes time to accelerate...)
Hope this helps.
great info, thanks!
Contrails have nothing to do with vortices from the wing tips. They are formed from the water vapor in the engine exhaust. If it were from the wingtips, all planes would produce the same number of contrails. Coincidentally, it is always the same as the number of engines.
Avi, your link in the first paragraph is a broken link. I love the photos I was able to see though. :P
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