Aurora? Over Los Angeles?

SO I have a quick question out there. For a long time now I have seen the typically referred to "donut on a rope" contrail that denotes the aurora spy planes passage. But the problem is I have been seeing these "donut on a rope" contrails for several years. in broad daylight. over LA. Shouldn't be possible.

So my question is this. what else besides the auroras engines creates that "donut on a rope" contrail that I see all the time in the sky. They are high up in altitude but there is a very slim chance that the craft making these contrails are the aroura. At least I doubt the govt. would fly the aroura over LA. for years on end. in broad daylight.

So any pilots or experts that are out there could you please tell me what sort of other engines create this distinct type of contrail. It's been a curiosity of mine for a while.

Thanks.

Mod Edit: All Caps Title

[edit on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:27:14 -0600 by MemoryShock]

mod edit: spelling in title

[edit on 9-3-2009 by DontTreadOnMe]

IF THERE IS AN STRONG UPPER CROSSWIND AN ORDINARY CONTRAIL WILL GO DONUT SHAPED ON ONE SIDE OF THE AIRCRAFT DUE TO THE WINGTIP VORTICES(INDUCED DRAG). THEY LOOK JUST LIKE SOME OF THE SO CALLED VIDEOS THAT I HAVE SEEN OF THE SO CALLED AURORA

reply to post by BASSPLYR

Depends exactly on what you are talking about but it's unlikely they appear the way they do because of the engine of the plane.

In one well-known example of this fact, the Crow Instability causes the vortices to develop symmetric sinusoidal oscillations and eventually to merge and form vortex rings behind the jet. This instability can be triggered by turbulence in the surrounding air or by local variation in air temperature or density, which may itself be the result of the stratification of the atmosphere. When the contrails are visible and strong, it is possible to see the white streaks become wavy and then leave rings floating high in the sky, like smoke rings from a giant cigar.

www.extrospection.com...

Another type is cause by desending air disrupting the shape of the contrail. Photo pre-1991.
contrailscience.com...

[edit on 2/26/2009 by Phage]

Thanks for the info. I suspect that my answer lies somewhere in the info you posted.

The contrails seem to look normal for the first few 1000 feet than as they cool or expand or whatever the knots of the contrail get bigger like there are pulses of exhaust but it happens after the contrail has been formed.

it doesn't look like wind or thermals causing the shape of the contrail to warp or take on different shapes. The Knots or donuts of the contrail are completely regular at equal distances and of equal size like they are being created by the engine somehow, like it's pulsing. Also they don't look "thinned out" but more like they are the same density as the regular part of the contrail. not wispy and spread out by wind.

but like I said it takes a minute for them to show or expand in the contrail. So I'm sure it's something normal I am just wondering what causes that.

And more importantly. A lot of the aurora sightings are accompanied by this donut on a rope contrail. which I am sure is a phenomena not limited to the aurora. so does this bring a lot of doubt into many reported aurora sightings that use the contrail as part of the evidence. can the contrail be discarded as evidence for the aurora. thats the real angle I'm getting at for this thread.

I once saw some film taken by a tourist aboard a commercial airliner in mid Atlantic which showed the doughnuts on a rope contrail. The expert on that particular programme said they were down to the Aurora's pulse detonation engines! Sounds great but I have no idea what a pulse detonation engine is!!! The expert said that each pulse or detonation (?) pushed the craft to new unheard of speeds. He also said that this type of engine was first used on a top-secret aircraft codenamed Pumpkin Seed!
Like most of this stuff it's hard to seperate the genuine information from the nonsense.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


If in fact odd contrails are associated with Aurora it may have more to do with the aerodynamics than the powerplant.

Yep - there are lots of those donuts out there today...
And some really wild looking trails - and yellow-brown puff clouds -
It's an interesting sky.
Usually on days like today (the last year or so) you can also see the rainbow
within the trail. Very slippery and shiny sky.

The design of a pulse jet engine is theoretically so simple, I've often toyed with the idea of building one for a model plane. Not as high-tech as a scramjet or anything, but something more along the lines of a V-1 Buzzbomb engine. Simple forced induction with timed combustion chamber closure/ignition.

If it didn't just blow up, it sure would be nice and noisy, and maybe a bit faster than most of the other model planes everyone else would be flying.

What if the "pulses" are actually holes punched in front of the plane to displace the air to negate the friction/heating due to air?

Originally posted by christopherledwards
What if the "pulses" are actually holes punched in front of the plane to displace the air to negate the friction/heating due to air?

I believe this type of displacement of air passing over the craft was used on the prototype aircraft codenamed Waverider. The idea is to reduce drag and heat build up along the planes leading edges.

I've never heard of this waverider program. I'm going to look into it. sounds interesting.

How does the shape of the plain effect the contrail as opposed to the engine arrangement and type. I believe it' true just wondering how that works. I know the shape of the plane effects the shape of the sonic boom shock wave.

Got a decent look at a aircraft making the doughnut on a rope trail yesterday with binoculars and it looked like some sort of commercial jet. like a 757 but a flat medium grey. looked like military type primer paint grey. So I figure Phage has the best explanation. just weird seeing it as I don't remember planes like 757 creating doughnut on a rope contrails as of more that a few years ago. Are they adding different stuff to the fuel that makes it combust differently or interact with the atmosphere differently after exhausted. Cools differently so it acts different than how I remember contrails to behave.

Originally posted by Nohup
The design of a pulse jet engine is theoretically so simple, I've often toyed with the idea of building one for a model plane. Not as high-tech as a scramjet or anything, but something more along the lines of a V-1 Buzzbomb engine. Simple forced induction with timed combustion chamber closure/ignition.

If it didn't just blow up, it sure would be nice and noisy, and maybe a bit faster than most of the other model planes everyone else would be flying.

Somebody beat you to it. Yes, they're loud. Yes, they're fast...which isn't always a good thing in the world of R-C.

Pulse-jet engines for model aircraft

reply to post by BASSPLYR


I've never heard of this waverider program. I'm going to look into it. sounds interesting.

How does the shape of the plain effect the contrail as opposed to the engine arrangement and type. I believe it' true just wondering how that works. I know the shape of the plane effects the shape of the sonic boom shock wave.
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The Waverider technology was created, I believe by aerospace engineer, Leik Myrabo (once involved with Star Wars programme) and plasma scientist, Yuri Raizer. It works by creating an air spike which punches a hole in the air ahead of the aircraft by firing microwaves. This basically destroys the electrons and molecules in that air which produces a plasma. This, in theory, should allow the craft to achieve speeds of anything up to Mach 25, more than enough to break the earths gravity field and achieve space flight.
The Russian top secret plane, Ajax is thought to already be using this technology.

the waverider seems interesting to me. Sounds like a lot of different proposed projects using plasmas for aircraft.

The idea of displacing the air infront of the craft to push the bow shock further infront of the plane to reduce drag allowing a much higher speed to be obtained sounds like what they supposedly did with the B2 (electrically charging the leading wing)

But the projecting microwaves sounds like something out of the skyvault program where they were trying to get objects to levitate using microwave beams against hulls made up of metamaterials.

But then again the electrogravetics guys who believe the B2 uses super high voltage electricity to create a plasma sheath that surrounds the plane and creates a gravity well that pushes the plane forward are said to use microwaves from radar like devices to ionize the incoming air. something to the effect of turbo charging the electrogravetic effect.

Interesting that the russians were developing he ajax. was it in response to the B2, and some of it's potentially undisclosed performance characteristics.

But how does the shape of the plane effect it's contrail other than the engine arrangement? I'm thinking Phages explanation is the best, although I still say that many of the contrails in question look like true doughnut on a rope contrails, but that would be very unlikely over the los angeles air space. although I have seen some weird things in LA's skies which were probably not conventional aircraft.

I believe that the aircraft that some people called "aroura" that was using a pulse detonation engine, has been replaced and is no longer in use.

The reports of the very distinctive "donuts on a rope" contrail have fallen off remarkabley in the last few years.


I have seen contrails distorted by the wind and such, but they look nothing like the "donuts on a rope" contrail I observed being made over the high sierra about 10 years ago.

As the aircraft passed over head the donuts formed immediately and were regulary spaced, pretty close together.

If I hadnt seen the the aircraft pass over and it wasnt headin straight for groom lake, which is about 75 miles from where we saw it I might chalk it up to atmoshperic conditions.


There is a video out there of a "donuts on a rope" contrail being ,made by a passing aircraft, but there is also a audio tape made by an aircraft buff who was listening in on USAF frequencies.

The tape was made in the same area at the same time as the the video, and the pilot is checking with regional flight controlers and the pilot is using a call sign that is used by classifed Exp. aircraft.
I'm thinkin the person who made the audio also made the video.
In the background noise you can here a very odd pulsing noise, not unlike the sound that was used for one the "pod racers" in Star wars Eps 1.

I have seen the same contrail on two different occasions but they were sometime ago.

I think the aurora has been replaced by a newer vehicle, one that can be seen as a twinkling /pulsing point of light moving at high speed, from south east to north west over central cal just after sunset.
Ive seen it 2 maybe 3 times, it wasnt a satellite they dont make large sweeping coarse corrections.
It could also be what was caught on tape by "The UFO hunters" in their last episode of the season.. They set up some remote cameras several miles out side of the nevada test range.
The cameras were pointed toward A51 and left for several nights, on one night there is a light that descednds into A51 at an estimated speed of 3600 mph.

Wow the last poster is talking about something I've seen too.

I've posted here about it in other threads before but a few years back on pretty regular intervals. every wednesday at around 10 PM for a few weeks in a row I would see flying over LA at very high speed and seemingly very high up a faint blue star like object (sorta the same blue and size as a small star-definitely not a satellite) moving from over the pacific right over LA towards the general direction of inland california and Edwards AFB. Moves from horizon to horizon in about 15 to 20 seconds. Will be seen moving in a straight line then will disappear and almost instantly appear over head or several miles further along in it's course as a brief blue streak then the star like object again. another time I saw it slaloming gently and just barely perceptible at the apex of each slalom a very faint shower of blue spark like objects cast off laterally. the "sparks" would fade out a second later. it only did this for a seconds or two and then continued on in it's straight course. Always heading in land from somewhere over the pacific. Once i saw it a hour or so earlier around 9ish heading reverse course from in land to the ocean.

Not sure what it was. it traveled fast. was star like. twinkled. looked really high up. would disappear and then instantly reappear much farther along in it's curse. Streaked suddenly once like the USS enterprise going into warp. salomned and cast off "something". not a satellite, followed the same course at the same time for a few weeks straight, and wouldn't be noticed by anyone unless you were looking straight up and I mean really looking, cause it was small and not the brightest light, although bright enough to penetrate through los angeles' lights.

Havent seen it in years, and I'm sure the flight path was temporary because I kept looking for it after it was gone and it didn't come back. probably moved to overflying the sierras instead. But damn this thing moved fast, and was dead quite. why it was overflying LA I'll never know other than the fact that LA's in the way outward bound from places like edwards and maybe some routes from groom. could have been so high that it was somewhere over the sierras and just seemed like over head due to it's altitude.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


right on

starlight like and twinkly

yah its fast 15 seconds from horizon to horizon.

i think its so high when it goes over that there is no sonic boom.

Two of the times i have seen it there has been some sort of international situation going on in asia, north korea and such, and it has been on the same coarse each time ive seen it.

twice from the se to the nw and once from the n to the s, the time it was going from the n to the s it made a sweeping turn to the se.

yeah the direction you mention it going is the same as or pretty close to my recollection too. but my sightings were back in 2004 or so. But yeah it kept a steady flight path for a few weeks (maybe for overflights in some conflict back then when I wasn't really paying attention to that sort of thing) then it must have gotten a new flight path because I never saw it again.

Wonder what it is. it doesn't seem to be the aroura as we know it either but something more advanced. Any idea as to what?

Your talking about starlight lights travelling at extreme altitiudes. . . Here in Liverpool, in the early eighties, my friends and I used to watch very pale lights, looking like a satellite, travelling across the sky which would suddenly do right angle turns and carry on towards the horizon. At there peak we would see them at least three or four times a week.
I await the leaked dosier that explains what my friend and I saw all those years ago.

yep thats what we are seeing over here too. something is flying in the sky thats very advanced. england and now california, both seeing the same thing and thinking it's military. One of the times I saw it it did do a 90% turn too. it was going west to east ,from over the pacific inland towards the california deserts. when it was about to be over head it disappeared, instantly jumped a good inch or two in the sky (imagine two inches of sky if you held your hand straight above your head and measured 2 inches with your fingers.) and with a short blue streak was traveling south to north towards ventura county, maybe kern.

the more you think about it the conventional notion of the aroura and it's scram jets seems pretty obsolete in tech. somewhere in the early 80's. I too agree that something else, much more advanced, has probably taken over the arouras role. Something they are covering up good, cause nobody seems to know what it is even though it does some pretty astounding tricks that conventional craft couldn't.