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Old 1st Mar 2004, 09:48
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cowabunga438
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
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You can often see contrails of wingtips or even flaps in the right conditions. Contrary to what has been said above you don't need freezing conditions just a relative humidity of 100%.

So either you pump a bit more water and some nucleation points into the local atmosphere raising the RH above 100% - instant contrail. - or - You you change the pressure quickly enough (adiabatically) say at a wingtip or over a flap and you can sometimes raise a parcel of air that was just under 100% RH to just over 100% RH

If you land in low cloud or near fog conditions as a pax have a look at the air over the flaps, not unusually to see wisps of cloud forming.
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