Some more WWII Contrails

January 28, 2008 Uncinus 17 comments

Here’s a newly discovered photo of contrail in WWII, this was taken by William Anderson, and uploaded by a grandchild of his, here. ( Creative Commons, Some rights reserved)

You can see it’s taken from a photo album. I cropped, sharpened, and contrasted it a bit to bring out the details of the contrails. The text “Note Little Friends” probably refers to the fighter escorts making curved contrail in the background.

It looks similar to this more famous photo:

That’s know as “Top Cover for the J Group”, and is detailed here. This photo was also taken over Emden, on September 27th, 1943, by Stanley M. Smith. Given the weather, and the planes involved, it might well have been taken on the same mission, within a few minutes of the first photo.

[UPDATE] Jerry Cole writes to me to inform me that he was the actual author of the photo. See his comment here. And his account of the photo in the Ventura County Reporter:

“I know I took the picture,” Cole said. “It was my first mission, and I thought they were German fighters, but they are P-47s getting ready to go back to England. They had a few extra gallons, and they were feeling frisky, so they shot up and then went back to England.”

This particular photo was almost delegated to obscurity because it had what Cole believed to be a fatal flaw in the picture. Cole said he walked past the clerk’s office where the photos were being sorted. The clerk was holding the photo of the contrails in his hands and gazing at it. However, it had a large streak of light across it, and Cole thought the photo was ruined. But the clerk did not agree that the photo was worthless.

“What I didn’t know was that he sent it to the wire services,” Clerk said. “The first place it actually showed up was in Time magazine in 1943. [The streak] was airbrushed out. That’s how it got published.”

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Written by scott on May 21, 2008.

I thought contrails were only left by jet propelled airplanes not propeller ones? Am I missing something here?
Written by Uncinus on May 21, 2008.

Contrails can be left by any hydrocarbon fueled engine. If you could take your car up to 30,000 feet it would make contrails. (Actually, in Alaska, cars make a kind of contrail on the ground when it gets to -40).

You see a lot more from jets as prop planes usually don’t have a reason to go that high. The wartime contrails are generally from planes that are flying high to avoid anti-aircraft fire.

Burning hydrocarbons (Gasoline, Kerosene, diesel, Jet fuel, etc) makes mostly water and carbon dioxide. The water is what creates the contrail.
Written by scott on May 21, 2008.

Well maybe but a lot of those contrails look like planes which have made pretty spectacular (impossible for old time planes imo) maneuvers, especially at such high altitudes, and the authenticity of these photos don’t look at all convincing to me, particularly the third one.
Written by Uncinus on May 21, 2008.

The third photos is very famous, and is certainly genuine. See:

http://www.390th.org/research/TopCover/topcover.htm

The “spectacular” maneuvers you see are from the fighter escorts, specifically P-47 Thunderbolts, quite capable of doing all kinds of acrobatics, and with a service ceiling of 43,000 feet. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-47_Thunderbolt

Here’s a video of some similar P-51 planes at high altitude creating contrails:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFYzHfjTGtk
Written by Shorack on June 17, 2008.

I have a question which I’d like to pose you.

You say it is the water that creates the contrail.
But I’ve read that you can also get artificial cirrus clouds as an effect.

Now, clouds can only form when there are small particles to stick to.
Is it safe to assume they can stick to the other particles in the exhaust of the engine?
Written by Uncinus on June 17, 2008.

Contrails ARE artificial clouds – they form with basically the same mechanism as cirrus clouds. They “create” cirrus clouds simply by spreading out, being blown by the wind, and sometimes by growing larger (as clouds sometimes do, quite normally).

When water vapor condenses into the tiny drops and ice crystals that form clouds, the process is called nucleation. For liquid clouds to form there needs to be the small particles you mention, these are called Cloud condensation nuclei. They are found everywhere in the atmosphere, but if there are more of them, then clouds can form quicker and easier.

Contrails are ice clouds (like cirrus), and form via an Ice nucleus this can be the same kind of thing as the cloud condensation nucleus, but if the air is cold and humid enough, then the water can directly sublime into an ice crystal without a nucleus (homogeneous nucleation). But that’s not generally a large part of the ice in a contrail.

Aircraft exhaust does contain a lot of particles that can act as nuclei, most in the form of soot, and that, together with the particles already in the atmosphere, is what the contrail cloud forms upon.

If you would like to learn more, then there is a discussion of the process here:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/aviation/035.htm#324
Written by Shorack on June 17, 2008.

Thank you for confirming and giving that link.
Written by Shorack on June 18, 2008.

Something else.
I recently saw a short clip of a plane.
But only the tail wings (i don’t know if that’s the correct name, but i suppose it is clear what i’m referring to) left a contrail.

Found that quite odd, hard to imagine that the difference between two layers would be that radical.
So what’s the mechanism in this case? (or is it really that radical? :s)
Written by Uncinus on June 18, 2008.

I assume you mean the horizontal stabilizer – which looks like two small wings at the tail of the plane:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/airplane.html

Contrails are usually generated by the engine exhaust (which is basically steam and carbon dioxide). Probably what you saw was the engine contrails just starting to become visible at the tail of the plane, so it looks like they are coming from the tips of the stabilizer. You see this a lot, and it’s one of the common. See question #10 in this post:

http://contrailscience.com/contrail-gaps-and-other-questions/
Written by Jim S. on August 8, 2008.

I saw a program on global dimming that had pictures of contrails the day prior to 911 and the study of the pictures for the three days after 911 when there were no planes flying over the US. Where can I find these so that I may show one of my friends that is interested.
Written by Uncinus on August 8, 2008.

Here’s a link to a study on this subject:

http://www-pm.larc.nasa.gov/sass/pub/conference/Minnis.abs.ARAMS.02.pdf
Written by Jerry Cole on May 28, 2009.

Please understand that the caption under the photograph “Top Cover” is incorrect, and has been for over 40 years…..How do I know? Simply, I took that photograph in 1943……I was a Combat Aerial Photograper with the 390th Bomb Group and I took that photograph that I have always called “Contrails”….Three Pilots of the 390th B.G. decided that they were in the lead plane of the photograph named “Skippy”……This is where they made their mistake…..I photographed “Skippy” twice, once in the USA and the second tme in England….The name is prominent on the nose of the plane and it does not show up in the photograph….How do I know?….I have an origional contact print from the origional negative and the there is no name on the nose of that plane in the foreground, so ( It’s NOT “Skippy”) This print has been examined many times by professional photographers ( I happen to be a Commercial Photographer )myself and the conclusion is always the same, the officers that made that claim as to who took the photograph is not true, nor were they in that lead plane….I recently have come back from England and was invited to speak to the Veterans and their familys at a Banquet of the 95th BG (Square B) and the 390th BG (Square J)as to the conditions that I took the photograph….If anyone is interested i will provide that information….My phone # 805-983-4887 I live in Oxnard CA
Written by Uncinus on May 28, 2009.

Jerry, that’s really fascinating. I was basing the caption on the article on 390th.org, where they claim that the name “Skippy” would be in shadow, but even in their article there is some doubt about the identification.

I see the photo in the Ventura County observer, has the white streak in it, with a very different background to the airbrushed version.

Do you have a high resolution scan of this that I might publish? I would greatly prefer to be using as close to the original as possible, and would love to help you set this matter straight.

Could you comment on the other photo (Contrails over Emden)? Do you think this was on the same mission? It’s interesting that there are two similar photos, and probably many more. Once can certainly see how confusion could arise, especially after several years. If you have any other photos of contrails, I would be delighted to post them here.
Written by Albert A. on February 4, 2010.

Why is this guy calling a contrail a cloud. WTF
Why would you call a contrail a cloud. So you insist that it is man made. So man is making clouds. WOW
Written by Albert A. on February 4, 2010.

http://www.iceflares.com
http://www.weathermod.com

So tell me… do these companies use water to supress rain?
LOL please
Written by SR1419 on February 4, 2010.

Albert-

I guess I do not understand your point- can you clarify?

The companies you mentioned use silver iodide to try and enhance precipitation- the ice flares are launched either from the ground or from a plane into pre-existing clouds. This has been practiced for over 50 years around the World.

They have nothing to do with persistent contrails which can spread out into a haze of cirrus like clouds and do indeed amount to man-made cirrus clouds. Their properties are quite similar.

What is it you are trying to say?
Written by SR1419 on February 4, 2010.

Albert-

You could hire one of Weather Mod Inc.’s atmospheric testing planes to go up and sample a contrail or 2 of your choice.

Willing to put your money where your mouth is?

Contrail Science

Some more WWII Contrails

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