Sonoma Country, California, 06/05/2001

quote:

---

I [the seeker] wrote Dr. Patrick Minnis father of many papers and studies of contrails about this photo, and I asked him for a analysis of it.

Many thanks are extended to Dr. Minnis for taking the time out of his day to inform those of us who seek knowledge about the subject of contrails...his detailed explanation of this event follows below....

The picture you sent contains a contrail, an altostratus cloud, and the
so-called "vortex" cloud. The "vortex" cloud is an example of glaciation.
That is, a thin, supercooled liquid water cloud (the altostratus in this
case) is rapidly converted to an ice crystal cloud. A supercooled liquid
water cloud is any cloud composed of water droplets with temperatures below
freezing. They can exist at temperatures, T, between 0 C and -40C. All
droplets turn immediately to ice when T < -40C.

The reason supercooled clouds exist is that there are no nucleating agents
available in the vicinity to allow the phase transformation to take place
when T = 0C. When a thick supercooled cloud is present, icing conditions
are also likely because the plane flies into the cloud and serves as an a
big ice nucleus. Supercooled clouds are most likely to be found in pretty
clean air.

If you have a thin supercooled cloud like the one in your picture, the
plane will not ice up because there is not enough water available and the
drops are usually so small they get pushed out of the way. However, the
exhaust from the plane has both water vapor and nucleating aerosols. Thus,
the conditions are right for changing the phase from water to ice. So,
when the plane flies through it, the exhaust causes the droplets to rapidly
change into ice. As soon as that happens, the newly formed ice crystals
start to grow very quickly and become too large to be suspended by the
ambient wind. Therefore, they fall out in the form of precipitation as you
see in the "vortex". This ice versus water thing is something I have
discussed many times before in the talk about contrails. The likely reason
from the circular area is that the plane was ascending or descending and
briefly passed through the cloud in or near the center of the circle. The
falling ice crystals depleted the moisture in the area around the center of
the circle producing the clear ring around the fall streak.

At the higher altitude, the aircraft must have run into some colder moist
air that produced the contrail. If the plane actually flies just below or
in the thin altostratus or altocumulus cloud, the result of the glaciation
will be a distrail. This vortex cloud is simply a discrete version of the distrail.

T/S

---

Ogallala, Nebraska, 01/03/2001

quote:

---

Question for Control Tower
Posted on August 4, 2001 at 01:32:25 PM by ControlTower

"Could you please again describe how commercial flights are directed in a fan pattern by ATC? Why would this be done? "

As an example. Multiple aircraft departing multiple airports on the east coast or midwest all enroute to the major airports on the west coast. Imagine if all the aircraft were to follow one route (for the analogy we can use Interstate 40). All aircraft would have to be five miles in trail, or use altitude separation, and even with altitude separation, there just aren't that many altitudes they can economically fly at. Now imagine if you were to put aircraft on either side of the interstate. Now you have twice as many possible flights. To take it further, imagine if you had more flights parallel to all the other aircraft. Result: less departure delays, more aircaft in the system, and lots of congestion at the arrival airports, sometimes resulting in holding patterns.

Before the [chemtrail-believing group] jumps all over me for insisting that aircraft are required to follow interstate highways - that was just an analogy. There are many, many jet routes, but the same theory applies. There is a lot of airspace between these routes and with the advent of modern navigation equipment, most aircraft can accept "direct" routing not requiring an airway. On the downside, there is a LOT of special use airspace in the great west, and aircraft are sometimes required to be routed around large MOA/ATCAA complexes and back into the jet routes when this airspace is active.

Can this procedure be documented? Sure. Take a look at Flight Explorer and see all the aircraft that are not on an established airway. If you see them going over MOA/ATCAA special use airspace, the airspace is probably not in use at that time or at that altitude.

Links or keywords to search for? Thats a tough one. There is always the FAA handbooks for air traffic control that are online, but they don't specifically address this issue. They cover the rules on "how" to do everything. You would have to take portions from several sections and put them together for each situation (basically what we get paid to do everyday).

---

quote:

---

Now, the third picture I feel is explained fairly well by Control Tower. The intersection in the middle is probably located right over a VORTAC (navigational beacon defining an airway intersection.) Aircraft flying over the VORTAC are going to cross, and thus the "X" and grid patterns will form over time at these locations. Also, planes won't always fly right over the top of the VORTAC, but will usually always be within a mile or two. Some pilots like to cut corners and will "lead turn" their planned course change after passing overhead of the navigational aid.

This doesn't mean that there will only be these patterns right over a VORTAC, however. These jet routes are only preferred routing, and either ATC or the pilots can initiate route changes such as skipping a few VORTACs in the route and proceeding directly to the destination.

For example, I went to an air show in British Columbia a few weekends ago and I stopped off at Mountain Home, Idaho. My planned route of flight from Mountain Home to Comox, BC was (1)Boise, (2)Yakima, (3)Seattle, (4)Victoria, and then (5)Comox. It was a fairly straight line to begin with, but soon after I got airborne I was granted a request to proceed directly to Victoria, skipping three of these VORTACs altogether. I'm sure that my flight crossed other flight paths in some places where it normally didn't, so if I were conning [leaving contrails] then it would have left an "X" over a spot in the middle of nowhere.

---

quote:

---

Posted on August 7, 2001 at 02:26:58 AM by Maverick

For the second picture (the oval racetrack patterns,) I can only guess as to what was going on. Of course, these trails resemble a typical holding pattern that one would expect a plane to be in. But, it would be very unusual for a commercial aircraft to hold for as long as the plane did that left the trail. So, my guess is that it is military. So, now why would a military aircraft set up a holding pattern at this location?

Well, I'm only guessing here, but I have two feasible explanations other than the one given [deployment of a VLF dual trailing wire antenna].

First, I gather from the vegetation in the foreground that Landers is somewhere in the southeast corner of California, namely near Edwards Air Force Base and China Lake. Much of the flight testing at Edwards(for both the F-22 and for other aircraft) goes on at unusual altitudes and airpseeds, and usually there is a tanker that is airborne during the test flights to refuel both the test and chase aircraft. Like I said, these tests go on at unusual altitudes to evaluate flight characteristics, and thus the tanker would then have to be at these altitudes as well. So, one guess is that this picture was taken near the airspace above Edwards, and the contrails are those of the tanker supporting the test mission.

Another guess would be that this is an AWACS orbiting outside of military airspace giving support to a training mission. They typically orbit at higher altitudes than tankers do because their radar depends on line-of-sight to track aircraft. The higher it gets, the longer look over the horizon it has.

---

quote:

---

Posted on August 7, 2001 at 08:49:14 AM by 3T3L1

I appreciate your response, Maverick.

According to MapQuest, Landers is about 120 miles southeast of China Lake. So would your explanation still hold? Or are the trails more likely to have been left by something from the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base?

Also, I got the picture from Thermit's trail report. The legend there says, "Landers, CA 11/1/94: This appeared overhead every Monday for three weeks, while similar formations were observed at the same time 50 miles to both the northeast and southeast on two of these occasions." Does that add any pieces to the puzzle?

---

quote:

---

Posted on August 7, 2001 at 01:47:54 PM by Maverick

Hmmm.

Well, there is a fairly large chunk of airspace just north of El Centro that is used all of the time for live-drop exercises. There's also a lot of airspace in and around Yuma, Arizona as well that this could be from. The Navy and Marines both use this airspace for some relatively large operations. So, this could still be an AWACS, but if there were similar trails nearby, then I don't think that is correct. There wouldn't be any need for more than one AWACS to control the battle at the same time.

I think that maybe the idea of Edwards tankers is also out due to the same reasoning. I don't even think that Edwards has three tankers, much less can I think of a reason to have them airborne at the same time for the type of testing that they do there.

The only other thing that it could be in my mind would be a couple of fighters in a combat air patrol (CAP) like the F-15s in the Gulf War picture. Having them set up in three different areas is also feasible for a lane-defense scenario, ie. have fighters set up in an azimuth to protect in three different axes. Unfortunately, that kind of falls apart here, too, because they would be in a formation of at least two line-abreast and the trail picture would only support the explanation if they were in a lead-trail type of formation. I can't draw it here, but they were line abreast the contrail would have the racetrack patterns beside each other and not in a series like is depicted in the photo.

So, the short answer is that I don't really know what it is. (this is in no way endorsing a conspiracy theory at all.) It could be just about anything, although I still believe it to be military in nature based on location and number of racetrack patterns.

Maverick

---

quote:

---

This is a photo of one of my approach plates into Newark, New Jersey. It is one of many arrivals to this busy airport. All major airports in the US have arrival and departure procedures. This arrival (And all others) "guide" the pilots along the same routes in and on the same routes out of these airports. If you follow the routing starting in the West (Left side of the photo.) It starts over the GEE VOR (Geneseo) and then continues outbound on the 111 degree radial to Extol intersection. At Extol you will turn right to a 133 degree heading and fly to the Hancock VOR (HNK). Before you get to Hancock though you will see a circular pattern on the airway (At Kodey intersection.). This is a holding pattern that Air Traffic Control (ATC) can put traffic into if things are getting backed up at the airport or on the arrival. Anyone who would live under or near this holding pattern on a clear day may see circular patterns in the sky. It's not a "Blitz of Chemicals" it's a jet holding on an arrival at a busy airport. There are thousands of these all over the country. As you can see if you follow the line to the right and then down (The airport is on the bottom of the page, not visible.) There are 3 chances to hold just on this one arrival! Now these depicted holding patterns are just for planning purposes...that is a place you would expect to hold if things get busy or backed up. ATC can hold you anywhere they want..they may tell you to do a 360 degree turn for spacing. Also in these holding patterns there may be 3,4,5 or more jets "stacked up" vertically

---

quote:

---

I have just added a photo from my high altitude jet charts depicting the reason for the "spokes" you will occasionally see in the sky. The photo is titled "Panhandle VOR " and is in the reference section. It is a shot of a particular VOR (Very high frequency Omnidirectional Ranging) in northern Texas called Panhandle. VOR's are pre GPS navigation aids. Near the center of the photo is the word Panhandle then some numbers (116.6...this is the frequency that would be tuned in in the cockpit to navigate to this particular VOR) and letters (PNH which is the 3 letter identifier for the VOR) and than the Lat Longs for the VOR itself. At the lower left of the box that contains all this info is a long skinny arrow pointing to the spot on the map where the VOR is located. All around the dot (The VOR) are numbers and lines. These lines are called "Jet Routes". These jet routes are for use only above 18000 feet and are essentially "Highways in the sky". As you fly across the country you will generally follow these VOR's and Jet routes doing tiny zig-zags until you join an arrival and then follow that to a landing. East bound flights are at either 29000, 33000, 37000, 41000 ft and West bound flights are at 31000, 35000, 39000, 43000. So you may see from the ground two airplanes cross the same VOR at the same time and appear at the same altitude (After all you are 6 miles below them and they are only 2000 ft apart (31000 and 33000 for instance)) each leaving a contrail. If it is a day that is conducive to contrails take a look at the Panhandle VOR again. See all of the lines around the VOR? If there are several planes flying at different altitudes and different directions you would get the "Spokes" that you see occasionally. No matter what the direction and altitude the planes all converge on one spot. By the way there are many thousands of these VOR's around the country and world. If you ever see one (It will be fenced in off the airport and painted white and orange (generally) on the airport) it looks like a big bowling pin on a large circular base. I hope this explanation helps you..........

---