Why planes make vapor trails
Item
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Title (Dublin Core)
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Why planes make vapor trails
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Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
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Why planes make vapor trails
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extracted text (Extract Text)
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AIRPLANES leave trails in the atmos-
phere that can be picked up, if a spot- |
ter is quick enough, like those of game
sought by a hunter. Some of them, espe-
cially trails left by a plane's exhaust at
high, cold altitudes, endure for some time,
while those made by wing tips creating vor- |
tices are audible as well as visible.
Both of these types of airplane trails are
explained by condensation. Invisible water
vapor in a plane's exhaust condenses into a
visible cloud when the vapor reaches an ex-
cess of what the atmosphere will hold.
Wing-tip trails add no water to the air, but
as their vortices expand, the air tempera-
ture in them drops and the dew point is
reached if the vortices are strong enough
and humidity is high.
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Language (Dublin Core)
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eng
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Date Issued (Dublin Core)
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1943-03
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pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
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55
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Rights (Dublin Core)
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Public Domain (Google Digitized)
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Archived by (Dublin Core)
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Matteo Ridolfi
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Marco Bortolami (editor)
Popular Science Monthly, v. 142, n. 3, 1943
