that doesn't appear to me to be the same thing as the multiple planes doing the crisscross patterns. this thread is long and i haven't read it all, but has anyone explained the difference between one plane with a con? chem? trail behind it as opposed to 2 and sometimes 3 crisscrossing over the same area for hours?
...2 and sometimes 3 crisscrossing over the same area for hours?
how do you know they're the same 2 or 3 planes?
the fact that you repeatedly get contrials over the same spot is explained by the fact that a ground-based navigation aid that determines the route of a federal airway is located beneath the planes' flight path.
parallel contrails are often indication of a crosswind: a plane flies over a navaid at X time of day in a 40 mph crosswind...
...then, at X + 15 minutes, another plane flies over the same navaid, and in the meantime, the contrail from the original plane has moved downwind 10 miles.
crisscrossing can be explained by planes bypassing navaid stations, or by planes who've filed flight plans "direct"... planes which use GPS, loran, ADF (including commerical AM radio stations), inertial navigation or other navigation systems that are independent of ground- based navaids.
something else that ought to be mentioned, especially if you live in central texas: texas is infested with military flight schools.
very few people are "natural" pilots... most pilots have to be trained in formation flying, combat tactics and manuevers, instrument approaches, everything...
for instance, if you're practicing instrument approaches, you will practice at high altitude so you dont gum the works up for people who actually want to land at the airport you're practicing on... not to mention that jets get lots better mileage at high altitudes.
all this training activity can result in otherwise nonsensical-appearing flight patterns and contrails.
As a 20 year fighter pilot I can attest to his offering regarding fighter pilots getting the meteorological info of where "the cons" will be before stepping out to fly.
In the USAF the brevity term for being in the cons was "Marking", as in "Conan 2, bring it down, you're marking." As we entered the MOA or Warning Area to set up for a practice long range fight we'd have one of our wingmen "light the cans" and climb up to check it (the weather liars aren't always entirely accurate). As soon as he started to "mark" in the climb, one of the other guys would call "Marking" to clue him to report his altitude as you can't see it easily from the cockpit itself (they start a few hundred feet directly behind you usually).
Conversely, as he climbed out of the cons, a flight member would call "Stop mark", the reply,"340." Armed with that info, when "committing" out of the CAP, we would go min burner (to save gas) to climb up through the cons above 34,000 so that the bad guys couldn't see us as we approached them from 60-70 miles away.
This also serves to increase the range of your missiles as you get faster and higher up in the thinner air, and as well your fuel consumption is significantly less at altitude.
Typically, the cons will begin in the mid 20s and end in the mid to high 30s, but they can stretch up into the 40s if atmospheric conditions are right - I had a wingie marking at 49,000 at Nellis once (very rare) when we (Alaska F- 15Cs) were trying to set up a difficult 3 group "Hi-lo stack" problem simulating MiG-29s against heater only armed F-16 students and IPs from the USAF Weapons School back in '93 (I was out of them at 52,000).
Six of us against eight of them, but four of theirs were bomb laden strikers. The problem was very difficult - we slaughtered them and the poor student leading the mission had to re-do the ride.
They initially saw my wingie in the high cons and got overly concerned with him and thus didn't see a lower Eagle who'd done some good maneuvering with chaff. He ended up 15,000 feet right over the "battle box" of the 4 strikers down in the weeds trying to hide behind mountains as they ingressed to their target. He "popped" all four as he dove down on them in less than 30 seconds then added insult to injury by gunning one of the other Vipers only minutes later - a simulated "Ace in a day".
