Exotic Military Aircraft

[coldair]

I found this interesting thread on the Google Earth Community Forums.

Donuts on a rope contrail? - Google Earth Community (http://redirectingat.com/?id=42X487496&xs=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbbs.keyhole.com%2Fubb%2Fubbthreads.php%3Fub b%3Dshowflat%26Number%3D1216913%26page%3D1&sref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F430152-exotic-military-aircraft.html)

Most of it seems plausible, I wonder what others think ?

[green granite]

I'd be more interested if the picture showed the aircraft at the head of the trail, but as it is we have no way of knowing how old the trail is and therefore no means of determining the cause of the "pulses"

[sisemen]

The VC10. Particularly mid-route and the rather delicious cpl(w) air stewardess gives you the come on, the few pax are fast asleep and the cabin is dark.

Oh, sorry I thought the title said erotic. :E

[forget]

Well I’ll be …. I saw a similar thing last week, for the first time ever. Blue sky over Cambridgeshire and a north-bound contrail with well defined and regular dough nuts. Much better defined than shown, and much bigger. I'm guessing one was produced every 3 seconds or so. I went to get a camera but got diverted, so no pics. The aircraft was out of sight by the time I saw the contrail so no idea of type, but it was on a regular commercial route. I’m intrigued. Anyone with any sensible ideas?

[LowObservable]

Verrry interrresting.....

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000091711/polls_wolfgang_4425_839219_answer_5_xlarge.jpeg

[BEagle]

Isn't 3 seconds the default intervalometer setting for most chemtrail dispersant operations?



















:E

[VX275]

So that's what donuts on a rope look like.
I've seen such contrails many times and on every occasion they've been pulled across the sky by a common or garden airliner.

[LowObservable]

The string of lights is a bit different...

[muppetofthenorth]

What would be the value of some high tech 'spy plane' which left a visible trail?! Always thought half the benefit of the Blackbird was that it flew at a level where it didn't make contrails in the first place...

But yeah, those lights are interesting.

[forget]

... donuts on a rope ...... I've seen such contrails many times and on every occasion they've been pulled across the sky by a common or garden airliner.

A few hours ago I'd have agreed with you on the likelihood of an airliner - but having read the OP's link throughout, now I'm not so sure. :ooh:

The main contributor seems to know what he's talking about - and in the wilds of Nevada strange things are going down. (It may be he's even discovered the final destination of the other Valkyrie.)

Mind you, my problem is how to connect Peterborough with China Lake. :hmm:

[sycamore]

I thought there was a `china lake` outside P`Borough....

[Norma Stitz]

Most contrails disperse in such a way...keep your eyes skyward chaps and see what I mean. There have been more convincing 'pulser' photos published by Aviation Week & Space Technology, though as per previous comments without knowing the circumstances (winds aloft, etc.) it's difficult to tie down to something with Groom Lake in its flight plan.

As for string of lights...anyone can do that with a time exposure of anti-colls flashing on an airframe flying over!

Now this is far more intriguing: YouTube - Mysterious Lights Over East El Paso, News Channel 9 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEtTl9cGrJc)

[forget]

Most contrails disperse in such a way...keep your eyes skyward chaps and see what I mean. :confused:
Perhaps that was only the third contrail I've ever seen and I'll take your word for it. (Rationale; My claim makes as much sense as your claim.)

... it's difficult to tie down to something with Groom Lake in its flight plan.

Maybe, but Peterborough's easy - which brings me back to my question - Anyone with any sensible ideas?

PS. Your El Paso lights are fascinating. Again - Anyone with any sensible ideas?

[Diedtrying]

Norma, the clip you linked is the US Army Golden Parachute team practicing for the El Paso Amigo Air Show 2010. :ugh:

Here is another clip for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaqvrv-8jIY&feature=player_embedded#! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaqvrv-8jIY&feature=player_embedded#%21)

[Lionel Lion]

Donuts on a rope?? More like airborne @nal beads

Oops been on det too long..

:E

[c-bert]

The string of lights is a bit different...

The string of lights is what any moving strobe light looks like on a long exposure. I took an identical photo in my back garden the other night of some random airliner flying into Southampton.

The film (or digital sensor) only 'sees' the pulse every few seconds so you get a string of light. Nothing special I'm afraid.

[ian16th]

At Istres in 1957/8 I saw the Leduc Ramjet blow 'doughnuts' quite a few times.

It was the a/c in the bottom photo at this link:
Leduc, the test flights (http://aerostories.free.fr/constructeurs/leduc/page8.html)

[Agaricus bisporus]

A very big assumption is being made here that just because the vapour trail breaks up into reguarly spaced blobs the thrust of the engine is pulsed. This doesn't follow.

There are three known engine types that are sometimes connected (journalistically) with skunk projects, only two of which are feasible.
Pulse jets are out - inefficient, hard to control, unlikely to operate supersonically.
Ram jets don't pulse, and PDE engines are intended to pulse at several kilohertz, wheras the "pulses" shown in the photos are more akin to a cartoon Panther motorcycle firing every other lamp-post, and would sound similar. A PDE operating at kilohertz would scream, shriek or roar, not go put-put-put.

Usual urban-mythology stuff I'm afraid, smoke and mirrors. Nothing more.

[forget]

:hmm: ........ and still no explanation, sensible or otherwise.

[Norma Stitz]

Hi 'forget'....alas my claim comes from (opens cloak) being a dot spotter in my teens and early 20s and seeing the trails dissipate in such a way (closes cloak).

Thanks Diedtrying for the Golden Knights answer...shame 'Channel 9 News' didn't research it properly before airing, but hey.

Going back to mare tangible evidence, Steve Douglass (google him) is an aviation radio nut in the US who sent his data to AW&ST magazine. One of his snippets was photos of a 'pulse contrail' (though I'd beg to differ) seen whilst monitoring the exotically callsigned DARKSTAR MIKE....which, alas, was/is an E-3 out of Tinker AFB.

[cornish-stormrider]

so what we are all alluding to is - Aurora, aka SR91, the plane that doesn't exist etc etc etc.


So, as sgt Friday says, just the facts. The Hoofing Blackbird had been retired. the septics have admitted that sats cannot do everything Tom Clancy says and they still have a need for realtime recon.

If we discount all the armadillo hat wearers there still seems to be "some" evidence that points to the existence of something sporty.


i'd like them to roll it out of the hanger one day, put a camera in cockpit on the speedo and say to the grobag - go on son, give in dog.


scare the pants off everyone with a this is what we've got now...

[forget]

Norma - Hi 'forget'....alas my claim comes from (opens cloak) being a dot spotter in my teens and early 20s and seeing the trails dissipate in such a way (closes cloak).

Norma - No disrepect to spotters but I've spent a life-time with aircraft, nearly 50 years civil and Mil in many parts of the world, and I said -

Well I’ll be …. I saw a similar thing last week, for the first time ever. Blue sky over Cambridgeshire and a north-bound contrail with well defined and regular dough nuts. Much better defined than shown, and much bigger.

You're wasting your time telling me that normal contrails 'dissipate in such a way'. They do not. Never have done.

[GreenKnight121]

OK... then I need to get out my camera and take a few snaps, because I have seen solid contrails break up into a series of puffs connected by a thin streamer (before breaking up altogether) frequently... and have for most of my 48 years here in the USA.

And yes, those contrails were along standard commercial routes.

If I got out my binoculars, I can even see the aircraft itself... something I used to do in order to count the number of "threads" in the contrail, which told me how many engines the aircraft had.

So much desperate denial of real-world normal events in order to hysterically push some "top secret aircraft" theory.

Sigh.

[aviate1138]

Conspiracy theorists are the absolute pits! The chemtrail cr*p and anything that requires a bit of lateral thinking is beyond these morons.

Doughnuts on a rope! If one can spend just a few minutes looking skyward on a suitable contrail forming day one can see doughnuts form behind almost every passing airliner [Surrey Hills UK] if at the right altitude.

For exotic military substitute neurotic observer. :rolleyes:

[Norma Stitz]

Sorry 'Forget'...it just happens as others have said, but not always....it's just an upper wind thing!

Thanks GreenKnight121.....Semper Fi!

[forget]

Conspiracy theorists are the absolute pits! The chemtrail cr*p and anything that requires a bit of lateral thinking is beyond these morons.

I hope that wasn’t pointed at me. Who mentioned conspiracy?

Having seen N number of contrails what I saw over the Fens was sufficiently interesting to warrant a photograph – unfortunately too late. This wasn’t a contrail breaking up into ragged wisps which you can see every day. Very regularly, I said every three seconds, a distinct ‘blob’ appeared around the contrail and I asked for sensible suggestions as to what caused them. As no one has volunteered I’ve produced my own ‘theory’.

Let’s say the aircraft is cruising in relatively still air (no drift) and vortices of some sort are coming off the wingtips. Let’s say that behind the aircraft the vortices are heterodyning, cancelling each other – combining - cancelling each other – combining. So, when they combine (in this case every three seconds) there is sufficient energy to whip the contrail apart and produce a ‘blob’.

As the air is relatively still the contrail and blobs stay around long enough for me (at least) to wonder.

Works for me. Anyone got any better ideas?

[cornish-stormrider]

it is obviously the extra large exhalation breath of the wheezy fat useless jockey, too busy to go down the gym and carry out some phiz:E

New fitness test thread in 3, 2,

[forget]

Oh yes! Back o' the net.:ok:

Pity Mr Crow got there first. We could have had forget instability.

Crow Instability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow_Instability)

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/crow.jpg

And flight safety implications. -

American Airlines Flt AA587 and the CROW Hammer of Wake Turbulence (http://www.iasa-intl.com/folders/the068event/587crows-1.html)

[Norma Stitz]

Nice find, forget....and that puts it to bed. I take it we'll leave 'The Dripper' (the shiny, plasma-shrouded 'thing' dripping balls of light seen at night from Edwards AFB North Base) to another thread/some other time?!