A good example of how CT nonsense is still around.

[Montauk]

I'm in a Facebook group for my community which tends to…ahem…promote debunked conspiratorial stuff and I just saw this post from today:

Airplane Trail questions

Yet another airplane trail question. Notice I called them airplane trails to not indicate if they are con or chem trails. I am not saying Chem trails exist or don't exist. I admit I am ignorant. But I have some questions that just seem logic based:

You've all flown in and out of Orange County Airport.

You know the basic landing and take off paths. When landing, planes are at much lower altitudes above us where condensation doesn't form as readily. So why so many trails outside of the takeoff and landing corridors ? They seem all over the place and at angles that are not aligned with regular take off and landing angles. Some look like they are going straight up almost instead of a gradual descent or even a steep takeoff. Take offs and landings generally should be the majority of trails and they should generally be going in the same directions for landing and take off? Most of the takeoffs are over the ocean?

We live generally where planes are on approach. This means lower altitude. Why would condensation trails form at such low altitudes, especially when it's been so warm outside lately?

I used to watch planes leave trails as a kid. They would disappear quickly behind the planes. You would only see a short trail behind a plane. Why do these trails now seem to stay, and expand so much? So much so, they start looking like actual clouds that remain. Just don't remember seeing this growing up.

And the comments…well…were what you'd expect them to be:

Everyone knows why, luckily there a several lawsuits in the works on this. Anyone that gaslights you into believing nothing is happening ignite. The laughing emojis can commence…go…

I can't remember ever seeing that amount of crisscross across our skies as I did on Saturday.

*citation needed*

RFK Jr. admitted that they are chemical trails and that they are "looking into it".

And many other in this vein.

Surprisingly, though, there was one person who actually gave a rational explanation which seems right to me:

Contrails only form at high altitude, 25,000 feet or higher. The lines you see are from commercial airliners travelling over, not on approach or takeoff from local airports. The volume of commercial flights has increased by more than 10 times since the 70's, so you see 10 times more flights in the sky. the conditions that form contrails at that altitude are well understood, depending on the temperature, pressure, and humidity. Those conditions change (weather), and so the appearance, dispersal, and longevity of the contrails varies day to day.

I guess miracles can happen.

Although it seems like someone wasn't too happy with it:

[T]he ole intermittent persistent contrail….

Is this guy trying to rebut the rational explanation…I don't get it.

 

[Ann K]

Contrails only form at high altitude, 25,000 feet or higher. The lines you see are from commercial airliners travelling over, not on approach or takeoff from local airports.

@Montauk
Well, that bit is wrong, of course, although the author got it right when he said "Those conditions change". The tech library windows of my company looked toward busy Cleveland-Hopkins airport, and if I was upstairs in the building I could very often see views similar to those of @Trailblazer 's recent post: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/photos-of-clouds-and-skies-that-you-took-yourself.2900/post-365776

It's not at all difficult to see the direction of the airport, but what the writer didn't comprehend is that many planes must use particular runways depending on the wind direction. Both in take-off and landing, planes may need to circle around to get on the right trajectory, so there will always be some whose direction is counter-intuitive. There would be very little point (and some danger) in traveling right over a major airport if you didn't plan to stop there!

 

[Mendel]

It's not at all difficult to see the direction of the airport, but what the writer didn't comprehend is that many planes must use particular runways depending on the wind direction. Both in take-off and landing, planes may need to circle around to get on the right trajectory, so there will always be some whose direction is counter-intuitive. There would be very little point (and some danger) in traveling right over a major airport if you didn't plan to stop there!

The airport does not control the airspace above 10,000 feet, so generally speaking, aircraft on their way to a faraway destination at 24,000 or 35,000 feet could be safely routed regardless of what airport may be below.
They would still be on a flight plan and under air traffic control.

The Copenhagen drone scare was caused by a small aircraft travelling near/overhead the airport, with ATC coordination. It happens. Burbank had two incidents recently of helicopters cleared to cross and almost colliding with aircraft.