A commercial air liner transiting a hub like LAX at altitude would be at 35,000' and very hard to see...especially at dusk.
The air temperature at that altitude should have been constant at that time and all transiting flights would have had similar contrail signatures but only one was homed in on and became an anomaly?
I'm sticking with examining the a/c contrail theory and eliminating it from argument of whether this was a transiting plane at altitude or a missile launch from 35 miles off the coast, a reported distance that is also highly suspect given that the footage was taken from a helicopter. The horizon from someone on the beach is about 30 miles; one from an elevated platform is much more.
I've seen a/c in the sky at altitude as a speck also, under certain conditions, depending on the size of the a/c and I've seen contrails that they've created but never seen one appearing just over the horizon. Lot's of questions to pursue here which seem pedantic and mundane, like what was the paint coloration on the Hawaii to Phoenix flight, course and course changes as well as the time of it's actual passage over the area and what did the cockpit of that flight report (or ignore) seeing from their vantage point in transit. A helo's visual at a few hundred feet is limited, an a/c at altitude is much greater.
Has anyone inquired as to what they saw?
The horizon from someone on the beach is about 30 miles; one from an elevated platform is much more.You describe how far the horizon is, on a flat plain, from ground level. Think about this. A contrail at 30k ft. stretching out nearly to the horizon. Being so high the visible far end of that contrail would be much further than 30 miles wouldn't it?
Hide the Incline!
Many very interesting posts there. I am only part way through them. They seem to have established that there was a NOTAM at that time not just afterwards as others have said.
(post #8) JG says:
November 9, 2010 at 6:41 pm
A Notam was put out for that area for 20:00 yesterday. NOTAM for LA. KZLA LOS ANGELES A2832/10 – THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS ARE REQUIRED DUE TO NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION ACTIVATION OF W537. IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY, ALL NON-PARTICIPATING PILOTS ARE ADVISED TO AVOID W537. IFR TRAFFIC UNDER ATC JURISDICTION SHOULD ANTICIPATE CLEARANCE AROUND W537 AND CAE 1176. CAE 1155 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1316 & CAE 1318 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1177 WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. W537 ACTIVE, CAE 1176 CLOSED. SURFACE – FL390, 09 NOV 20:00 2010 UNTIL 10 NOV 01:00 2010. CREATED: 08 NOV 20:52 2010
Those times are UTC so by PST the NOTAM was on from 12:00 PST to 5:00 PST. It ended about the time the video was made.
Has anyone inquired as to what they saw?
Good question. I have seen nothing on that.