Why is there an airplane that flies very high and leaves a long white smoke trail?

Question

If it wasn't for the smoke trail, I would not have noticed the plane. Also, what type of plane is it?

Answer 1

Contrails left behind an aircraft at high altitude usually dissipates between 30 and 50 miles behind the aircraft.

The trails that you see that stretch for hundreds of miles across the sky and usually a number of them parallel or crossing or in a circular pattern are actually very sinister in character. These are what is known as a Chemtrail. Special aircraft release various compounds and chemicals into the atmosphere. They are also known to release various viruses.

You may not wish to believe what I have said about Chemtrails, but I would like for you to look at the following sites then make up your own mind.

Answer 2

It is not smoke, but is vapor trails. As moist air travels over the wings of a commercial jet, the moisture is rapidly cooled and condenses as it leaves the trailing edge of the wing, then starts to warm up again, creating a sort of cloud. The type of plane is probably a commercial airline jet, as this happens at high altitudes such as 30 thousand feet.

Answer 3

Actually all planes make the smoke trail. It may have seemed very high because it may have been a smaller plane such as an Embrear regional jet or a Learjet. Those can fly up to FL450

Answer 4

Normal passenger air planes. They fly around 32,000 feet up. The ones that you see up at this height are normally long distance flights, they get up high to get out of the way of the lower traffic since they are flying straight though.

The smoke you see is actually water vapor caused by the engines disrupting the cloud base at that altitude.

Look up in the sky and you will see these com-trails aka smoke trails all the time....on hot summer days they will seem to be long thin clouds.

Answer 5

At high altitudes, you would only find CONTRAILS which are from the turbulance formed from the wing tips of planes, known as wing tip vortices. Airplane exhaust would be visible at lower altitudes, usually when taking off and the exhaust is dark in color. For high flying military aircraft seen with white trails would be B-52, SR-71, U-2.

Answer 6

My guess is that the jet exhaust condenses in that supercold air and forms those trails. Once, an airliner that I was on happened to pass a couple hundred feet away from another airliner, and I could clearly see these trails forming right behind the engine nozzle of the other plane.

Answer 7

Contrails are condensation trails (sometimes vapour trails): artificial cirrus clouds made by the exhaust of aircraft engines or wingtip vortices which precipitate a stream of tiny ice crystals in moist, frigid upper air.

Contrails are created in one of two ways:

1. First, the airplane's exhaust increases the amount of moisture in the air, which can push the water content of the air past saturation point. This causes condensation to occur, and the contrail to form.

Aviation fuel such as petrol/gasoline (piston engines) or paraffin/kerosene (jet engines) consists primarily of hydrocarbons. When the fuel is burned, the carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide; the hydrogen also combines with oxygen to form water, which emerges as steam in the exhaust. For every gallon of fuel burned, approximately one gallon of water is produced, in addition to the water already present as humidity in the air used to burn the fuel. At high altitudes this steam emerges into a cold environment, (as altitude increases, the atmospheric temperature drops) which lowers the temperature of the steam until it condenses into tiny water droplets and/or desublimates into ice. These millions of tiny water droplets and/or ice crystals form the contrails. The temperature drop (and therefore, time and distance) the steam needs to condense accounts for the contrail forming some way behind the aircraft's engines.

2. The wings of an airplane cause a drop in air pressure in the vicinity of the wing (this is partly what allows a plane to fly). This drop in air pressure brings with it a drop in temperature, which can cause water to condense out of the air and form a contrail.

Exhaust contrails tend to be more stable and long-lasting than wing-tip contrails, which are often disrupted by the aircraft's wake and are commonly very short-lived.

Check these out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:C-141_Starlifter_contrail.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Aircraft.in.cruise.arp.jpg

Answer 8

The contrail is water vapor from the engines of a jet or turboprop aircraft, and is the by-product of the combustion of jet fuel. At certain temperatures, it condenses - much like the water vapor in a cloud - into a trail of visible material.

Not all aircraft leave contrails, and not every aircraft will leave a contrail every time. It's a factor of altitude, outside temperature, and probably pressure and humidity.

Answer 9

that's not smoke, it is a con-trail (condensation trail) that is created by the high speeds and high altitudes making the water vapor in the air into water or something like that. It is probably a military jet. It flies high because it gets better gas mileage.....less air at high altitude, less air equals less friction, less friction equals easier to fly, easier to fly means less power needed, so less fuel consumed.

Answer 10

I had read a few times on the
Coast To Coast website
about comtrails....they look like smoke trails and aren't left by planes..
look on George Noory and Art Bell website for answers...