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You've never shot a bearing have you?

Not from a still pic with no compass references, no.

Done any land nav?

Lots. But only by my own sense of direction and topography. I have spent hundreds of hours alone in the wilderness and never have lost my way although I rarely take out my compass.

If I asked you to stand at the center of that window and point the laser at the contrail, what would the laser light cross over on its way to the contrail?

That was my point in asking why you didn't use the other side of the island. The starting point you used was right of center. But it's a photograph anyway so the landmarks you cross would not be the same as they would if you were actually there shooting a laser line across the landscape. Foreshortening in the foreground of the photo changes the relative size of objects in terms of distance (or length as you measure from near to far). If you had a photo taken from directly above the landscape you could get a fairly accurate line if you had two identified points.

Just a heads-up for lurkers:

One of the most prolific pushers of the airline contrail "scientific" hocus-pocus, Rokke, had gone for 21 months on Free Republic without making one, solitary post -- his most recent was on Feb. 13, 2009.

Then on Nov. 11, 2010, two days after CBS shows the Leyvas footage, he went ballistic and has remained there.

Since then, he has made 76 posts to Free Republic, every one of them on the missile threads. NOT ONE SINGLE POST, after a nearly 2-year hiatus, has been made on any other topic. That's right. One of the noisiest and most desperate proponents of the airline contrail hoax ... Silence for nearly two years ... and then all the sudden more than 75 posts on exclusively ONE subject in one month.

Rokke claims that he has ... 15 years flying fighters including several combat tours, fly the MD-11 for FedEx and am currently back on long term military orders, so I avoid posting on FR for Hatch Act issues (most of the threads on FR are political in nature). It is safe to say I have probably spent more time in my life creating giant contrails and dodging missiles than you've spent dreaming up conspiracy fantasies."

There is a pungent stench of bullsh*t about this guy.

"Lots. But only by my own sense of direction and topography. I have spent hundreds of hours alone in the wilderness and never have lost my way although I rarely take out my compass."

Ok, that explains some of your confusion regarding concepts like lines of sight.

" But it's a photograph anyway so the landmarks you cross would not be the same as they would if you were actually there shooting a laser line across the landscape."

That doesn't make any sense. Do you believe the landmarks in the picture don't actually exist? They are in exactly the same spot on Google Earth.

"Foreshortening in the foreground of the photo changes the relative size of objects in terms of distance (or length as you measure from near to far)."

Again, this makes no sense. Who says there is "foreshortening"? And if there is, are you saying the objects are moved in the X or the Y axis?

"If you had a photo taken from directly above the landscape you could get a fairly accurate line if you had two identified points."

I identified three points and plotted them on the direct overhead imagery of Google Earth.