Contrail piccie taken from Poulten (Lancashire)

img380.imageshack.us...

Piccie taken yesterday by a friend who lives in Poulten (Lancashire, just outside of Blackpool).

She heard a rumbling ( loud ) aircraft noise whilst inside working, but ignored it as its quite common around there. About 15 minutes later heard the same noise but alot louder coming back towards the house, and decided to go see. Took this one piccie before the batteries on the digital cam packed in. Sent it to me, and I have no idea what so ever. The noise was described as a deep rumbling and extremely loud.

Any ideas or thoughts appreciated folks.

Looks like a normal contrail that was blown about by upper atmospheric winds... As for the noise, sounds like a jet to me. Some of the older Lear and Citation jets are pretty loud, even when they're up high.

If they create trio's of contrails thats a good enough explanation for me... Cheers for that one dude - just hope she manages to get a piccie of the actual plane next time round . Oh and I agree the corkscrew contrail / clouds been blown around a bit, but looks awesome any how !

Ah, I didn't know that the two sets of three were the ones you were talking about. Had you indicated that, I wouldn't have thought that the contrail in the center of the image was the focus of the discussion.

Those probably came from some military craft flying in formation.

My bad there cmdrkeenkid.


Yeah for others its the three contrails going both ways that i wanted to raise up, and some thing I have just seen whilst looking at the image... look closely at the trio contrail to the right hand side...see it? theres a curving / weaving contrail (Alot fainter) lol im looking to agreeing with the formation flying / joy ride by military craft.

It also could be an MD-11/DC-10 contrail that has spread a little bit. From the grouping of them it looks like they were made by a trijet. From what I can recall, the only commercial trijets left are the MD-11 and DC-10, although I THINK that the RAF still has some L1011 tankers flying.

[edit on 6/4/2006 by Zaphod58]

hmmm --- they look to be @ contrails from jets flying at 20 / 30 k feeet [ standard air corridor altitudes ] -- and IMHO jou wouldnt hear anything -- no matter how loud it was

OTOH , we get alot of military traffic flying up and down the ribble valley

and thats mostly

I forgot to mention this the other day, i was sitting watching TV then heard this loud deep rumbling and straight away knew it was an aircraft but when i went outside and looked up, this plane, (from the ground) looked about 20 - 30 Thousand feet up, but this was sooo loud, usually you can't hear planes that high up, but this thing was rumbling along roaring. I looked around and there was definately nothing else around only this plane. Any ideas what it might have been ?

By the way i live in Newcastle, England.

Atmospheric conditions over a lot of the UK have been very condusive to contrail formation over the past few days. Been a lot of good pictures taken... Not that that helps determine what made these ones.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
they look to be @ contrails from jets flying at 20 / 30 k feeet [ standard air corridor altitudes ] -- and IMHO jou wouldnt hear anything -- no matter how loud it was

Yes... You would... I've regularly heard jets flying at that altitude. Commercial jets, too, at that.

i65.photobucket.com...

I've had to host this on photobucket as image shack is down, so its lost some of its quality because its had to be resized to be hosted.

Taken at 21:40 last night by the same person who took the first piccie. The camera is a hp photosmart 3.1 mp job thats not perfect for the job but all thats available!

the noise is a deep rumbling, very loud, and even though the aircraft is not visible it is extremely fast - her estimate (Not an aviation buff sorry peeps) is about 3-4 times faster than a 'holiday jet speed'.

I'm stumped by the three contrails though. Any ideas?

Originally posted by MadGreebo
even though the aircraft is not visible it is extremely fast - her estimate (Not an aviation buff sorry peeps) is about 3-4 times faster than a 'holiday jet speed'.

Well, that would put it well above the speed of sound. Most airliners fly pretty fast, and near the speed of sound, so that would mean sonic booms.

I'm stumped by the three contrails though. Any ideas?

I still think what both Zaphod and I said are the best bets.

Originally posted by MadGreebo
i65.photobucket.com...

the noise is a deep rumbling, very loud, and even though the aircraft is not visible it is extremely fast - her estimate (Not an aviation buff sorry peeps) is about 3-4 times faster than a 'holiday jet speed'.

so she didnt see the plane ?

again -- i will state my opinion that the contrail and noise are two totally seperate events

as for speed -- thats > 1200mph MINIMIUM , at the risk of stating the obvious -- nothing is allowed to fly over fylde at that speed

hang on -- if she didnt see the plane , how can she estimate velocity ?????


the nearest supersonic range is way out in the irish sea

PS -- i have no idea why 3 parelel trails

like all your threads , this is getting chuffing bizarre

hang on -- if she didnt see the plane , how can she estimate velocity ?????

Theres a frickin great contrail -Next stupid bloody question ape?



like all your threads , this is getting chuffing bizarre

Well i'm so hurt by your critique ape - oh my, let me limp away with your poisoned barbs killing me - not.

As for every body else who looked at the piccies - Thank you. I'm not a civil aviation buff and whats been suggested is helpful - I have asked the piccie taker to see if they can get a better camera with a zoom - as im interested in whats making a trio of contrails.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
hang on -- if she didnt see the plane , how can she estimate velocity ?????

MadGreebo, he has a point there. You can't judge the speed of the plane by looking at the contrail.

like all your threads , this is getting chuffing bizarre

Again, I would say that he has a point again - A lot of your threads seem to stem from information that comes from a friend or some other third party.

You can not judge the altitude of a plane by naked eye alone.

www.flightexplorer.com...

OK peeps no worries. So if I personally don't see any thing, but I share stuff with people that have....I stay quiet right? cool...


wow.... deny every thing unless you see it your self...




No more questions from me on this one.