JaXanim wrote:
@blobrana
Yes, that's the transient precipitation I talked about earlier. The car didn't leave a trail right around the track did it. If the right conditions were to prevail, it might happen, but that's highly unlikely.
So, what is it about flying that's different from the F1 scenario?
JaX
On a cold day, my car leaves a vapour trail, even when it's moving slowly. The vapour tends to drift upwards though.
Now, that's just the water from burning petrol at the rate of approx. 3 ltr/hr.
A 747 (according to
this has a mac fuel capacity of 173 tonnes, for a range of 13.000 km and a cruising speed 0of 930kph.
That's a burn rate of 12.4 tonnes of fuel per hour.
Aviation jet fuels are C8-C16 hydrocarbons. As a stab in the dark say that the average is round about C about 12 and H around 22.
That works out to be about 15 tonnes of water produced per hour. It doesn't seem unreasonable to suspect that if the upper atmosphere is cold and saturated, then that amount of condensate would be visible.