Photos of Planes and Contrails (That you took yourself)

American Airlines 777 Frankfurt to Dallas 33000ft and a United Airlines 777 Frankfurt to New York 32000ft

Not sure which is which but I think it's AA on the rightDSC_0075[1].JPG
 
Christmas bird
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Air Canada Airbus A330-343 C-GHKR, flight 833 BRU -> YUL passes almost exactly over my place at 33,000 ft on the Christmas morning at about 10:45 UTC.
 
On a grey Christmas Eve this window in the cloud opened up to reveal a sunlit trail overhead. I didn't stop to identify the flight.

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A chilly day at the beach on December 27, with some white and some grey trails (and a shadow in the first pic)

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I think the middle white trail was TOM7272. The one closer and to the right was a private Bombardier Challenger. But there was a whole procession of flights over this bit of coast:

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Quite a sharp turn into the sun, snapped on my way to work this morning:

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Not much info on Planefinder, but the flight number shows it is XL Airways France.

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Strangely, hovering over the flight on the map screen shows the destination airport as MRS (Marseille), not Paris CDG.
 
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Not much info on Planefinder, but the flight number shows it is XL Airways France.
FR24 shows differently:
Screen Shot 2017-01-05 at 13.31.28.png

The A332 aircraft is 'unconverted' RAF Voyager, owned by AirTanker and leased to Thomas Cook Airlines. Two days ago one of these aircraft arrived to CBG from Brize Norton for some work to be done on it.
 
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FR24 shows different:
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The flight code SE / XLF is XL Airways though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XL_Airways_France

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And it shows up on flight searches as the XL JFK-CDG flight. upload_2017-1-5_14-2-24.png


Interesting info about the conversion. I found this about the specific plane:


AirTanker receives penultimate Voyager ahead of civilian conversion

  • 29 FEBRUARY, 2016
  • SOURCE: FLIGHTGLOBAL.COM
  • BY: BETH STEVENSON
  • LONDON


AirTanker has received the 13th of the Royal Air Force’s Airbus Defence & Space A330-200 Voyager tanker transports, ahead of a planned civilian conversion of the type.

Future Strategic Transport Aircraft (FSTA) 13, carrying the registration EC-332, was delivered to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 24 February from the manufacturer’s Getafe, Spain site, and will undergo modifications to take it from a military to a passenger-carrying configuration.

This activity should be complete “later this spring”, at which point it will be added to the civilian register as G-VYGM. It will then be available for commercial leasing from August, AirTanker says, providing last minute availability for airlines.
Content from External Source
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/a...ves-penultimate-voyager-ahead-of-civi-422508/

Maybe the fact that it is a leased aircraft confuses the flight tracker sites?
 
Maybe the fact that it is a leased aircraft confuses the flight tracker sites?
Probably. G-VYGM is to be leased to Thomas Cook Airlines for Summer 2017:
https://www.thomascookairlines.com/...lines-partners/our-fleet/partner-airlines.jsp
It appears that currently the aircraft is hired by XL Airways France:

Flight Information

Flight: (SE) XL Airways France 31
Operated By: AirTanker Services Limited on behalf of
(SE) XL Airways France
Departure: Wed - Dec 28, 2016
Route: JFK to CDG
Equipment: 332 (Actual)
Status:
Content from External Source
Source (cached)

Perhaps, FR24 prematurely updated their database :confused:
 
lots of contrails this afternoon (although i admit i grabbed my camera for all the different sky colors and didnt even notice the contrails until i looked at the pic on my computer)

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Pink contrails just before sunrise...

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... and more dense-looking trails an hour later. Nice shadow effect at the intersection, too.

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I didn't see the plane, the contrail looked like a real hair pin turn, much tighter than it was. My photo was taken 9 minutes after the Gulf Stream had passed.

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Persistent v non persistent contrails this morning (I've circled the latter as it is pretty tiny!)

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The two planes responsible (I was late for work and didn't let the compass calibrate properly so the alignment is a bit off). The one leaving the contrail was still climbing from Stansted, and from Planefinder playback was at around 30-31,000 feet as it passed closest to my location had levelled off at 33,000ft according to FR24. The higher plane (37,000ft) had a very short contrail.

Interestingly for a certain UK chemtrail theorist, the A320 wasn't leaving a persistent trail, while a Boeing 737 was!

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Edit: confirmed on desktop FR24 site:

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The persistent trail was still very obvious five minutes later before it got hidden by low cloud.

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Low tropopause and good viewing conditions today. There were only a very few short trails.
 

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Saw a neat contrail shadow today. You can see it on multiple cloud layers and at a pretty steep angle because of where the sun is. Also some interesting crepuscular rays from where the sun is shining through the clouds, almost made it feel like it had a "zooming in" effect added to it.


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An interesting example of the evolution of a persistent contrail left by a private jet ascending through the zone of atmospheric turbulence/wind shear:
Screen Shot 2017-03-02 at 14.41.12.png IMG_0941.JPG IMG_0944.JPG P1060835.JPG P1060837.JPG
The first image was taken in about two minutes after the (linear) contrail was formed, and the last one about five minutes later.
 
This flight climbing out of Bristol on Saturday left an aerodynamic contrail, then there was a gap before the engine contrail faded in:

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The aerodynamic trail was quite low altitude:
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A few minutes later: only the aerodynamic part of the trail persisted (and had blown quite a distance to the north)

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This posh-looking C-130J-30 Super Hercules in a glossy camouflage paint, belonging to Royal Flight of Oman, was serviced at our local airport:
Oman RF C-130J 525.png
I posted a short video of her departure yesterday that captured "dark" aerodynamic contrails coming from propeller blades:
C-130J propeller blade contrails.png
 
Good to know the camera still works after weeks of cloud.

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Image I took of a plane plowing through a cirrus band of clouds..
10AM, today.
It disturbed the cirrus, and left a trail of it's own....

This is the normal flight route from (or to) San Diego, far over LAX......seen nearly every day.
 
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