John Kerry testing a new “wind surfing” gizmo...
Posted on 06/19/2005 8:27:21 PM PDT by Finny
About ten minutes ago, Husband in hills behind Brea, between Brea and Chino Hills, spotted in the northwest what looked like something entering the atmosphere. We grabbed binoculars, and it was extremely high altitude, coming in, not going out. Anybody see it? Can probably still spot it further north, as in Pasadena, etc. Grab binocs and look.
That's nuttin...I saw black helicopters flying upside down where I live!
After observing many launches from Vandenburg, I've yet to one go north.
Kirkwood, perhaps. But again, there were ZERO contrails, not even short ones -- just a blast of white. Husband is cranky and has gone to bed; when I asked him he said "It wasn't a contrail. It was a burn." He's worked around and with jets, FWIW. Also, we have often watched VAFB launches with the binocs, and seen the burn from the missiles as they go into space. They don't look like contrails, they look like .. well, burns.
The FAS guys show 3 operational at Edwards...
Serial numbers 64-17967, 64-17971, 64-17980
Pretty good SR-71 history and details...
http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/sr-71.htm
gil in Tucson
"Kirkwood, the contrail of the shorter one is much, much longer than what we saw. There was NO contrail. You couldn't even tell it was forked into a V unless you looked through binocs."
Um, that was the only one I could find that illustrated the point that contrails come in all shapes and sizes. Some aircraft have no contrails at all (imagine that!). You saw a contrail. Trust me.
BTW, you can use this to track flights around certain areas of the country:
http://www.passur.com/
At my local airport the data is saved for some time and you can go back and find certain aircraft in a specific place at a specific time. I suspect if you have this for your area, you could not only find the aircraft, but the airline, flight number, altitude, speed, and aircraft type as well.
Are you Alex Jones?
On that note, if Alex Jones ever stops seeing black helicopters, we'll know that our Dept. of Homeland Security is not doing it's job.
The guy who could answer those questions has gone to bed! But I will mark this post and ask him tomorrow. I can tell you this much -- that when I was posting a request on this thread to folks in Sacramento asking if they could see it, as I pushed the "Post" button, he laughed at the futility of my posting that, saying "It's over Alaska by now." And he meant it.
Thanks for the link.
Maybe it was Firefox...
http://uk.geocities.com/hindgunship/moviepic.htm
"All I could find, but that's for one's own self to decide. I see 2 trails on a single engine plane so it doesn't add up."
Water can condense off of wingtips because the air is compressed there. So you can easily get 2 contrails or more from a single engine plane. You see that a lot flying in the humid southern states in summer. Vapor trails off the wingtips at low altitudes especially. Ever use an air compressor and see water vapor come out? Same thing. That is why you need a water trap filter on air compressors if you use them with tools or for painting. Actually water can get compressed out all around an aircraft and you get a huge cloud out. Pictures of air being compressed by a bow shock of a fighter jet are particularly interesting.
John Kerry testing a new “wind surfing” gizmo...
Bad link.
Thanks for the link and the info.
"They don't look like contrails, they look like .. well, burns."
They look identical under certain circumstances... like when seen from a distance with binocs. Contrails are made up of water vapor and water reflects about 2.5% of the light that hits it. So, 2.5% of the reflected light from the sun is extremely brilliant... ever try looking directly at reflected sunlight from a lake?
Good point.
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050603_deep_impact.html
In early July, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft will deploy a tiny impactor to smash into the nucleus of a small comet. The idea is to excavate a sizable crater and provide valuable insight into the true nature of comets.
/.../
Finding the target
During June, Comet Tempel 1 will be gliding on a south-southeast course through the constellation of Virgo, the Virgin. The comet will have already made its closest approach to the Earth in early May at a distance of 66 million miles (106 million kilometers).
Although it is now moving away from the Earth, the comet is still approaching the Sun, so its overall brightness in the coming days and weeks will appear to change very little, if at all. The comet is expected to hover at around tenth-magnitude, meaning that it will glow about 40 times dimmer than a star that is at the threshold of visibility with the unaided eye.
So, to successfully locate it, you will need three things:
A star chart with the comet’s projected path plotted on it.
A good telescope and of course,
A dark, unpolluted night sky.
During the next several weeks, Virgo and the comet will be over in the west-southwest part of the sky as darkness falls and setting soon after midnight, local daylight time.
The night of impact
The Deep Impact spacecraft is expected to arrive near Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, one day before the comet reaches perihelion (its closest point to the Sun). It will have released its copper...
"Maybe it was Firefox... "
Hehe!
Nah...black helicopters are common where I currently reside.
Either that or I have a very vivid imagination. LOL
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