Okay....that's Strange!

First off, I've been working on or around aircraft since I was 18 (53 now), and have seen every conceivable kind of contrail. No strange science to it. Hot engine exhaust at a given altitude condensing/freezing leaving a trail behind the aircraft, pronouncement depending on the moisture content of the air at that particular altitude.

Four friends and I witnessed yesterday, around 5pm CST over the St. Louis area while sitting on my patio, the opposite of a contrail. The weather was beautiful. Relatively clear with some high cirrus clouds. My buddy Faz says, "Man...That's weird!". So I stand up and turn around to see what he's looking at. I'm looking at what can only be described as a "reverse contrail". It's as if something went through the cloud and sucked up the moisture in a perfectly straight west to east line. That was strange enough. Minutes later, and this "reverse contrail" was showing no signs of degrading, an aircraft (I'll have to look at the pics we took to see if the type is discernible) leaving your typical contrail is flying straight down the path of the reverse contrail like it was going down a highway.

I'll post the actual pics from my wife's phone and our camera when I get home tonight, but until then, these are as close to what we saw as I can get...which apparently means this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Any ideas on what could cause this? I'm at a loss.




With the aircraft running down the center of the dead straight 'void' in the cloud layer leaving a contrail looking more or less like this.

interesting pics .... thanks for posting

JEBar said:

interesting pics .... thanks for posting

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Those are from Bing images. I'll still need to see what the ones we took yesterday turned out like. Oh...and two of the four guys you've met before at the trap range.

10-4 .... it won't be long until we are back out there .... got your steak orders read y ?

I've got you down from 6/9 to 6/19 on my calendar. Still the planned dates?

And yes I've got my order ready. I'll give Charlie the 'heads up' that you're coming to see what he's wanting.

yep ... should be OK for Henges on the 11th, 12th, and/or 18th

Ah ha! What we witnessed is what's known as a "distrail" [dissipation trail]. Explained as when an aircraft flies through a supercooled cloud, it disrupts the water droplets causing them to instantly freeze and fall from the cloud leaving a clear path though the cloud. They're very rare.

First time I've ever seen one. Mystery solved.

Except it's still pretty strange that the aircraft cruising down the path of the distrail was leaving a contrail. The distrail should have theoretically removed the moisture from the air in that path which would not allow for the formation of a standard contrail.

Oh well. Thank you Google and Bing for the explanations.

Cool pix. Have seen but not common. Glad for another 'flyboy' here. (Soloed at 16, 45 years ago...hmmm, that's been awhile.)

NSTG8R said:

contrail

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Contrail is the British English term. In American English, they're called "chemtrails".

That second picture almost looks like the trail from some type of pulse jet engine, like Ram-jet, or Scram-jet.
Problem is, the "pulse" is at a 90 degree angle, which makes no sense at all.