Talk:Contrail

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Contrail article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1: 90 days

Aviation

This article is within the scope of the Aviation WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.AviationWikipedia:WikiProject AviationTemplate:WikiProject Aviationaviation articles

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Climate change Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Climate change, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Climate change on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Climate changeWikipedia:WikiProject Climate changeTemplate:WikiProject Climate changeClimate change articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
If you are looking for ways to improve this article, we recommend checking out our recommended sources and our style guide

Weather: General Low‑importance

	Weather portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Weather, which collaborates on weather and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details. Articles Requested Project Resources Become a Member Project Talk Assessment A-Class Alerts WeatherWikipedia:WikiProject WeatherTemplate:WikiProject WeatherWeather articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the General meteorology task force (assessed as Low-importance).

Ectoplasm example photo

The recent Blue Angels show in San Francisco provided some nice examples of the ectoplasm effect described on this page. I'm wiki-challenged or I'd try to add one to the main page; here it is on Flickr:

http://flickr.com/photos/fitzhugh/263984025/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.243.233.68 (talk) 19:18, 11 October 2006

ECTOPLASM? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.235.154.34 (talk) 10:07, 15 April 2015‎

Two causes?

I don't get it. Are there two causes for contrails? The article seems to say so. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 06:57, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Contrails are visible trails of condensed moisture in the atmosphere. They are associated with aircraft and rockets. So there is only one criterion for what constitutes a contrail. However, there are numerous phenomena that can cause a visible trail of condensed moisture in the atmosphere. Firstly, the long contrails we see at great height are caused by moisture from the engine exhausts. These contrails can extend over a great distance and can persist for many minutes. Secondly, short contrails that are usually only visible around aircraft near the ground can be caused by wingtip vortices from the wings (or propellers) of aircraft. These short contrails extend only over a short distance and rarely persist for more than a few seconds. Thirdly, a localized region of "cloud" above the wing of an aircraft is also condensed moisture in the atmosphere so it almost meets our criterion for a contrail. This cloud above the wing persists for such a short time it appears to be attached to the aircraft and follows it around. Dolphin (t) 12:59, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Vapour trails

Is "contrail" a neologism or a military phrase? Back in the 70s and 80s, they were called "vapour trails". I've only heard the phrase contrail for the last five or maybe ten years, right around the time the "chemtrail" conspiracy crap started to blossom.

Contrail seems to be a contraction. Even if this word has been accepted by the scientific community, the commonly used phrase vapour trail should still be mentioned, in bold, in the article lede. On top of that, the etymology of the word contrail should be explored in the article. --82.2.5.153 (talk) 12:37, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Picture looks out of place in the 'See also' section

In my opinion, the picture looks out of place in the 'See also' section of the article and should be re-located to a different section in my opinion. Xboxsponge15 (talk) 18:36, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The pics are actually in the gallery section. Mobile devices or different browser sizes can sometimes alter the perception of a page layout. But I did remove one image in the 'see also' section since there isn't a need to illustrate See also items. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:02, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Citation Problem

This article claims that up to 30% of jet exhaust can be unburnt jet fuel. I thought this seemed unlikely to be true, so I looked up the source (Ritchie et al. 2003). Sure enough, the paper says that, but it's not an original source. Ritchie et al. cite that figure from a 2nd paper (Kelly et al. 2003). However, this paper is not found in the bibliography at the end of the paper Ritchie paper. Therefore, there is no real source for the 30% figure that I can find. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.161.251.136 (talk) 05:09, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]