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Living near the Utah test range give me the opportunity to see some strange aircraft flying overhead. Sometime you can ID them from their con-trails like the B-52, no mistaking that sucker.

Coming home from a field trip with my youngest yesterday I saw this con-trail and snapped a couple of pics. I think this is the proverbial “pearls on a rope” so many talk about on the internet. Check out the smoke-rings inside the con-trail.....So what do you think, pulse engine or alien technology??

Thanks for the pics Dice. I've never been around the BUFF's enough to know they had a different contrail. Nice to know so I won't be thinking pulse engines or something out of StarWars.

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Slow is Fast, Fast is Slow
Violence may not be the best option, but it IS an option

I think it's a boomer special...

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

Who would have though the alien invasion would start in Utah?!?!?!

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Would an alien spaceship using fusion powered anti-gravity propulsion have a contrail?

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Evil is evil, no matter how small.

\"Who would have though the alien invasion would start in Utah?!?!?!\"

Have you been to Utah Paul? I think they have had advance parties here for years!!!!!!!

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Gravity's not just a good idea.......its the LAW!

Scramjet or hypersonic jet? Maybe a boom from it? It looks like it.

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73-1664

I've seen that one many times. It's the Millenium Falcon trying to make the jump to light speed.....

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\"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a GAU-8/A at your side, kid.\"--Hawg Solo

These contrails have been spotted from time to time and not just in the U.S. As I understand it they CAN be made under certain meteorological conditions in mountain areas. I dont think you would have missed the \"boom\" if it was the Aurora since it's been known to rock the Richter scale

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

I see them overhead from time to time here as well. There are theories and conjecture about them belonging to the \"Aurora\" project, but obviously no \"official\" comments. I'm not a propulsion engineer or field expert, but it is highly possible (IMHO) that a pulse/ram/scram jet type of engine produced them. Let us know if you actually ever see the producer of these contrails one day, will ya?

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Just give me some ammo, a little water.....and some chips if you got 'em

Aurora used RBCC engines, would most likely produce a \"puffed\" contrail at low speeds now that I think about it.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

I really don't know what kind of aircraft it was because it was to high to see clearly but, I've seen contrails my whole life and this one looked strange. No sonic booms (in fact there was no sound at all as I remember) and it make a couple of wide sweeping turns as it flew south.

I'll keep my eyes open and my camara at the ready.

But seriously, I have seen them before as well. While I did stop and study them, I figured it was just the right atmospheric conditions. Whether or not mountains have anything to do with it I am clueless, but I do live between two major mountain ranges.

On the conspiracy side of things, maybe they were \"chemtrails\" and they were running out of \"chem\"????

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\"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a GAU-8/A at your side, kid.\"--Hawg Solo

If you notice there are two contrails there, the popcorn and a normal one behind it. Makes it even odder and to ME less likely to be a random atmospheric thing, more likely to be an angine problem of some kind on something more conventional than Aurora.
Dice in the first pic we see the con stop, did it just end there or is the aircraft still pumping it out at that point and is just to small or well camo'd to see?

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Not yet...hope to be an IG augmentee for Hills next LSET or UCI...

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It's the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy! The commercial Jet!

As a commerical airline pilot, we see these all the time between 28,000-36,000 feet. Why, well basically because we all follow the same airlanes to get to and from. The contrail altitude layer depends on certain critical things

It is no more than the \"conning layer\" or contrails dissapating.
What you see is the condensation collecting together in little puffy clouds

Contrails form when hot humid air from jet exhaust mixes with environmental air of low vapor pressure and low temperature. The mixing is a result of turbulence generated by the engine exhaust. Cloud formation by a mixing process is similar to the cloud you see when you exhale and \"see your breath\"





This Graphic represents how saturation vapor pressure varies as a function of temperature. The blue line is the saturation vapor pressure for ice as a function of temperature (in degrees Kelvin). Air parcels in the region labeled saturated will form a cloud. Imagine two parcels of air, A and B as located on the diagram. Both parcels are unsaturated. If B represents the engine exhaust, then as it mixes with the environment (parcel A) its temperature and corresponding vapor pressure will follow the dotted line. Where this dotted line intersects the blue line is were the parcel becomes saturated.

If you are attentive to contrail formation and duration, you will notice that they can rapidly dissipate or spread horizontally into an extensive thin cirrus layer. How long a contrail remains intact, depends on the humidity structure and winds of the upper troposphere. If the atmosphere is near saturation, the contrail may exist for sometime. On the other hand, if the atmosphere is dry then as the contrail mixes with the environment it dissipates.

What had taken place is the thermal activity and buffer zone at that jets particular altitude where it was disspating rapidly. We had a very large shift in warm temperatures this week. From the high's of 50's on monday to the highs of 72 on Friday. Allot of wind and thermal changes this week. This all effects the troposphere.


Pulse Jet Technology flies in the altitude of 75K and higher, wher ethe conning layer does not exist.

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\"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. \"

George S. Patton

Well, there goes my chemtrail theory...

Well put, thug!

One question, though. It appears there are 2 types of trails here, no doubt from having more than 1 engine. Considering the atmosphere is probably identical 100 feet apart, wouldn't BOTH engines be making the same type of trail(both puffy or both solid)?

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\"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a GAU-8/A at your side, kid.\"--Hawg Solo

optimistically you could say yes, being they are traveling through the same density pockets of air. But who is to say the engines are both running identically. they are seperate mechanical assemblies, with seperate channels of fuel , lube, fadec etc running to them.

In my 25 years of Jet aviation. Ive never seen engines match up once.

In fact last thursday i landed with one Engine in the Citation 2 During a IFR checkride with one of my students.

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\"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. \"

George S. Patton