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Old 10th Mar 2012, 00:51
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Willard Whyte
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
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The contrails of the North Sea do look tighter, and appear to 'originate' from a known orbit area in the N. Sea. The contrails over land, however, do not correspond to a designated orbit area.

The picture suggests the aircraft had orbited over a dozen times and, with each orbit taking the same time in minutes as is the radius of the orbit @300kts, thus making the total time in the observed orbit as around 3 hours. The vector of the contrail therefore suggests a prevailing wind at altitude of ~030 degrees @60 kts.

All very '-ish', maths-wise, I should add.
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