Okay, normally I don't listen to CC's Triv anymore, but

[zbdent]

Today I wanted to see if he was still trying to push the Rather story.

I take WTAM 1100's triv as little as necessary.

So, this afternoon, he was blathering on about the "fighter jets" in the air, and yelling about all the lame "explanations" given by many of his callers and staff (mostly dittohead wannabes).

They were talking about the vapor trails in the sky, and Triv was claiming that there were fighter jets up there. How somebody can tell the difference between the vapor trail of a fighter jet and the vapor trail of a commercial 707/whatever from 30+ thousand feet, I don't know.

One "explanation" was that, because of the "afterburners", commercial airliners don't leave "vapor trails", but fighter jets do. Seems to me that this would be bass ackwards. Fighter jets wouldn't want to leave telltale signs, right? And, if they were going from Toledo to Perry Nuke plant as proffered as a reason, why would they get up to 30+k feet?

Still, it did make me nervous enough to stop and fill up my gas tank in case something was going down. Mainly when I looked up in the sky on my way home and saw far too many parallel vapor trails in too close of a section of the sky.

Anybody hear anything? Most of the trails were west to east. Few had turns.

Ever since Triv said he liked the people Bush surrounded himself with, I have been taking what he says with a ten pound brick of salt instead of a grain.

But, the excess parallel VTs did make me wonder . . .

[mtnester]

1. I noticed that myself today

LOTS of comm trails this afternoon...lots..you know. the kind where you look up and go "damn, look at all of those"

Central Ohio here

[Kolesar]

2. I think the contrails are more visible under certain humidity conditions

They fade away quicker in low humidity. All jets leave vapor trails. The only exception I can recall is that the B2 stealth bomber can inject fluorocarbon compounds into the exhaust to "prevent a radar signature". (what a stupid idea, expell ozone-depleting chemicals at 30,000 feet).

P.S. I admire your patience listening to Triv. He is an idiot.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

3. Not an aerospace engineer, but...

I don't believe that fighter jets use their afterburners all the time (high fuel consumption), so it would be likely that a jet that is cruising wouldn't have the afterburner operating. As far as I know, there are no commercial airliners equipped with afterburners.

[AngryOldDem]

4. What do you all make of this?

I read this thread earlier, and just out of curiosity, I went outside to check if I saw any vapor trails (kind of overcast here in Daytontown today, but there have been a few breaks in the clouds).

While I was out, three huge helicopters flew over in formation. (The big kind that have rotors in front and back -- transports? Sorry, I don't subscribe to Jane's Defence Weekly so I'm not up on my military hardware.)They were headed toward Wright-Patterson, naturally.

These do fly over, but rarely. Just thought it odd that I was curious about vapor trails and then these dudes fly over.