Why all the planes?

Question

I live on the coast of Massachusetts not far from the New Hampshire border. Today was a very clear day with blue skies and no clouds. I saw the strangest thing around 3:00Pm. The sky had all these vapor trails and I started watching the sky. In 15 minutes 24 planes leaving vapor trails flew by. The trails lasted a long time. More planes flew by and, although not accurate, I think there were about 40 or more int the hour that I watched. The sky in the Southern section became hazy and streaked with haze and vapor trails. I've never seen such a thing before. The planes seemed to come from the northeast and fly towards the southwest. I only noticed 2 planes heading from south to north. All of the planes left trails Eventually some of the trails looked like clouds but they weren't clouds.
Does anyone know what was going on?

Answer 1

at specific temperatures air can hold more or less water (moisture)
the clouds, or vapor trails you observe is water in the air having just the right temperature to condensate around dirt-particles in an airplanes exhaust.

its the same as if you exhale on a cold day, but on a larger scale.

the reason you see all these trails in specific locations is, that planes usually fly on specific routes ... you can imagine them as virtual highways.
The whole sky (at least for planes) is divided into specific zones where traffic passes
if you see 100 planes from south to north, they fly at a different altitude as those other 100 planes fyling in the other direction. The temperatures were different in those zones, so you see alot more trails in one direction.

Answer 2

It takes a certain amount of moisture / temperature and airpressure in the atmosphere to create the vapor trail.

If the plane is flying at an altitude where the moisture is not right, you will not get a vapor trail. Therefore, you will most likely not notice the airplane.

On that particular day, the moisture must have been just right at all the altitudes that planes were flying at that day, leaving lots of trails.

Answer 3

Probably there are that many planes flying over every day but you never notice them. Probably on that day the humidity at high altitude was just right to make very long lasting contrails, highlighting the number of planes more than usual.

Answer 4

Millions of people fly every day and the skies get more crowded every year. What's amazing is that there are so few air accidents, a testimony to the skill and talent of the pilots and air traffic controllers and the engineering that goes into modern airplanes.

Answer 5

Well they are not contrails are they! In my opinion they are spraying pollution down on us, bad stuff to! Like stuff that will make you sick and eventually die! It's call population control! Look up the patine for chem-trail spraying or atmospheric spraying, it tells you what they are spraying out of the airplanes. They, our government will say now that they are spraying this because it stops the greenhouse emissions by keeping it cloudy which of course keeps the pollution trapped inside our atmosphere and keep the temperature down.Or to stop global warming, by making clouds and keeping the temp. down...But they are still spraying harmful pollutants! This has been going on for at least 5 years that I know of. You can call and ask your senator, but they probably won't give you a answer. When you see the skies like that, stay indoors, because that stuff drops down on everything. Look at yourself with a black light in the dark sometimes, especially after they spray, you will see lent like stuff all over you. And we look scary especially our eyes, the pupils! I didn't think we ever looked like that before under black lights! Or is this just a conspiracy?

Answer 6

Have you noticed now many planes are flying around at about 3 pm on any other day (especially Fridays)?

Answer 7

You just happen to notice all of the international flights flying in from europe and beyond on the great circle route. They fly that high all the time.

Answer 8

They were nuclear bombers
Las Vegas is having a free buffet lunch and 10 free play bucks at the casinos for pilots and crews

Answer 9

I think all these people should just stay home instead of flying around willy nilly. I'll bet half of them could have gotten their business done online or by teleconferencing.