Posted on 01/14/2025 6:27:00 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The excellent and highly detailed youtube channel WWII US Bombers did a recent video on the types of contrails produced by bombers (3 kinds) and the conditions under which they were produced. The guy has apparently limitless access to Air Force archives.
Did you forget to add the “Moron” and “Kook” tags?
I saw Luke Skywalker blow up the death star. Right there on film.
Face Palm. This is getting worse than Tik Tok.
Silliness.... right up there with Navy F-18s chasing magic tic-tacs.
No one is arguing about whether high altitude aircraft produce contrails. What is being discussed is the abrupt halting of the contrail in the video. If the video is real no one has explained that sudden, instataneous halting of the contrail.
So cloud seeding is a conspiracy theory, and there are not thousands of cloud seeding patents?
Ok, the video is a fake. I am good with that. Agree?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine_engine_thrust
"Water, or other coolant,[16] injection into the compressor or combustion chamber and fuel injection into the jetpipe (afterburning/reheat) became standard ways to increase thrust, known as 'wet' thrust to differentiate with the no-augmentation 'dry' thrust.
Coolant injection (pre-compressor cooling) has been used, together with afterburning, to increase thrust at supersonic speeds.[17] The 'Skyburner' McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II set a world speed record using water injection in front of the engine.[18]
At high Mach numbers afterburners supply progressively more of the engine thrust as the thrust from the turbomachine drops off towards zero at which speed the engine pressure ratio (epr) has fallen to 1.0 and all the engine thrust comes from the afterburner. The afterburner also has to make up for the pressure loss across the turbomachine which is a drag item at higher speeds where the epr will be less than 1.0.[19][20]
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/96674/how-much-does-water-injection-improve-thrust-of-a-jet-engine
Snip.... "Note that water injection increases thrust by accelerating the water mass (and also increases engine performance by cooling); similarly, the mass of added fuel in afterburning also accounts for part of the added wet thrust. In this sense, given that afterburning engines get around two thirds more thrust, effectively by quadrupling fuel consumption, when a significant portion of that thrust is from accelerating the fuel mass, not just from combustion, it is understandable that we might start to wonder if we should swap a few hundred gallons of fuel for water.
I think the numbers on SFC (specific fuel consumption) for afterburing engines are worth commenting on here because the inefficiency is insane, whereas water is rather cheap. For afterburning turbofan engines, fuel flow usually quadruples in reheat. The SFC in the F-16's FW100 increases from 0.76 dry to 1.94 wet - dry thrust being 17,800 lbs and 29,160 lbs wet. When calculating with FW100 thrust figures, dry fuel burn at sea level is 225 lb/minute, but in reheat/wet it's 943 lb/min. So by more than quadrupling the fuel burn, the result is just 64% more or 11360 lbs additional thrust. Considering the F-16 has 7000 lbs internal fuel, this is a heavy price to pay for 64% more (sea level) thrust and it certainly makes an additional 30% thrust from water injection sound appealing at first glance.
As far as actually commercially "budgeting" for wet thrust, the Concorde was the only afterburning commercial aircraft, so it would be interesting to know how close they were to adopting water injection. It would appear the weight savings with afterburners was more important than the cost savings of a heavier water injection system.
For the purpose of civil experimental aircraft it would be extremely interesting to see how water injection could be employed and if a similar 30% boost is achievable. Given that the small TJ-150 engine produces 337 lbs max thrust and probably burns 50 GPH at sea level, the prospect of getting an additional 100 lbs thrust for minimal cost or weight, even for a few minutes, would be very appealing.
Edit: I should also add that the Honeywell TPE331 turboprop engine gains an additional 10% power - Augmented 5 min Rating - from water methanol injection.
And:
This reminds me of the supposed Chinese ICBM launched from a sub off the west coast threads from back in the day. Anyone recall that? Half of FR was convinced it was a sub launch and half thought it was a jet contrail the helicopter pilot filmed head on coming up over the horizon.
Freegards
Path 1: The video is real and the sudden stopping of the contrail is not normal, defies physics and needs an explanation.
Path 2: The video is a fake designed to raise suspicion about "chemtrails". If so then no further explanation is needed.
All I want is someone to point me down the right path, I am not getting that.
that was my thought..i mean- it is an internet GIF....
If it’s so innocuous, why was Imgur.com compelled to delete it?
All I did was post it on my FR homepage. It probably didn’t even get ten hits there.
I’ll bet he hit a warm updraft, you only get the condensation with a certain temp and moisture (dew). So if there was a warm updraft right there, the condensation would have stopped.
How many flight hours do you have?
A warm updraft above FL 260?
Repost it and see if it happens again.
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