why is the smoke from an airplane seen like a smoke from a rocket?

Answer 1

same fuel

Answer 2

If an airplane is smoking like a rocket, bend over and kiss your butt goodbye as you're about to crash. Modern aircraft generate no smoke at all.

Under certain conditions at altitude, aircraft may generate contrails. These are simply clouds of water vapor that is condensing quickly. All internal combustion engines (including jet engines) generate water vapor and this may condense under the right conditions and form vapor trails.

Contrails are sometimes also generated along the trailing edges of the wings, especially at the wing tips. The pressure drops significantly there and if there is a lot of moisture in the air, it may condense into vapor clouds due to the pressure drop.

Ignore the d00b that said that rockets and airplanes use the same fuel. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Jet and turbo-prop aircraft use jet fuel, basically kerosene.

Rockets use either a solid propellant much like dynamite in a carefully controlled burn or a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen that auto-ignites in the combustion chamber. Solid fuel rockets do generate tons of smoke, literally. Hydrogen/oxygen motors generate water vapor only.

There is the rare booster rocket that uses kerosene but those are the exception since solid fuel generates much more thrust per unit of mass of fuel.

Answer 3

Yeah, there's no smoke coming out of an airplane. It's not exhaust and it is completely unlike a rocket. If it were, you'd see it when airplanes take off and land, which you don't.

Why do airplanes sometimes leave contrails behind? Actually, contrails, short for condensation trails, are essentially clouds. They are no different from the cirrus clouds that naturally form in that region of the atmosphere.
High in the atmosphere, water can exist in one of two basic forms. It can either be invisible water vapor--a gas--or it can condense around microscopic dust particles into tiny droplets or ice crystals. Every cloud you see is made of tiny droplets or crystals like this, and so is a contrail.

To make an airplane contrail, you need water and some kind of microscopic particle for the water to condense around. When jet fuel burns, it releases both water vapor and microscopic particles of exhaust. A contrail occurs when the jet's water vapor condenses around its own exhaust particles.

If you see a plane that's leaving no contrail--or a very short one--this means the upper atmosphere is relatively dry. Dry air reabsorbs the water as invisible vapor almost as soon as it condenses. On the other hand, if you see a contrail that lasts a long time, this means the upper atmosphere is already saturated with as much water vapor as it can hold.

Because of this, you sometimes can use contrails to predict the weather. Quickly fading ones suggest a dry upper atmosphere and fair weather. If you see a lot of long contrails in the sunset though, you might carry an umbrella the next day!

Answer 4

There is no smoke from a jet engine, you are seeing condensation. There is also no smoke from a rocket. When you see the space shuttle launch, what looks like smoke is steam coming from the launch pad. There is over 1 million gallons of water per minute pumped over the pad to prevent it from melting. And they do not use the same fuel, jets and rockets.

Answer 5

What you see as smoke from a high flying aeroplane is a mixture of a very small amount of exhausted unburnt fuel, the heat of the exhaust jet and the turbulence around the engine mixing this together with lots of fresh air. In many ways what you are seeing is closely related to steam or cloud.

Some of what you see is not smoke. Parts of the wings can created vortices that whip the air around and produce a white vapour. This usually occurs from wingtips or raised parts on the wing surface.

Answer 6

It's not smoke you're seeing from an airplane. Without going into too much detail, it's water vapor (steam) caused by heat from the engines and the moisture in the air..

Answer 7

The temperature up there is around -55 Deg.C. Anything hot with fuel vapours will get freezed at this height, hence one sees these 'smoke' lines.

In rockets, when liquid oxygen is used as a fuel it oxidizes very fast and you get a volcanic view at the launching pad.

Answer 8

Because it's exhuast is like a rocket.

Answer 9

No smoke there just water vapor unless of course the plane is on fire....

Answer 10

the heat condenses the air...

You see the condensed Air (or con trails)... because the water particles form mini-clouds.

Answer 11

it is not smoke it's vaporised water, or a little skinny cloud.