Circles in the sky

[SpringHeeledJack]

I looked up at the clouds this morning and was suprised to see several beautiful sweeping circles and curves made by an aircraft that was at just the right height of the thin cloud layer to cleave out blue sky within the white. Judging by the size of the channel it must have been something largish and as this was south/south east of LHR, Occam's razor suggests an inbound heavy to same airport. The unusual feature is/was that it is nowhere near any holds, probably 3miles south of the 27L/R flightpaths. I'd guess the height of the clouds at no more than 3000m and the time of the plane(s) doing it's thing around 11am to 11.30am today, saturday 18th August. Anyone have an idea what was making all the circles ?



SHJ

[treadigraph]

Took this photo in Purley at around 1130 today - cloud was drifting from the Ockham hold direction and would think it was around 8 or 9000ft...

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/treadigraph/P8180456.jpg

[SpringHeeledJack]

Oi! That's MY cloud ;) Well that is part of it, there were other much nicer bits (photographed but not uploaded) and if you further south-west than myself saw that, then Ockham is was. I've never in all my years of looking skyward seen trails through clouds last so long, and I viewed them at around 11.40am, so mused that they had been made within 30mins and were 'local'. I guess that the clouds were somewhat un-dynamic within themselves as they moved slowly NE and dissipated.



SHJ

[ZOOKER]

That's a fine example of a 'distrail', as opposed to a 'contrail'. Nice Altocumulus too.
In aviation meteorology, in the U.K., cloud heights are still expressed in feet. :ok:

[treadigraph]

Saw another interesting phenomenom yesteday - Lufthansa 737 outbound Heathrow, perhaps 10000 and a distinct shadow cast on some form of cloud/haze below and ahead of it. The aircraft was quite clearly visible, so whatever the shadow fell on was very thin!

Something similar about 6:30am a week or so back - a BA 777 turning into LHR cut a distinct swathe through a very thin layer, probably only visible because the the very low sun shadowing it slightly.

[student88]

Did anyone get a view of the two King Air aircraft that were apparently in a holding pattern over London at 22,000ft for most of the olympics as a data downlink from the video helicopters?