[meteorite-list] Wales pics & fighter jet fuell dumps

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:22 2004
Message-ID: <001301c38cc4$68bea8b0$a2ccea3e_at_HAL>

Hello again,

Following Ed Majden's lead, I hit the internet. There's some background on
F111 fuel dumps on

http://www.fb-111a.net/Dumpburn.html

...and at the end of it there's a link to NBC footage (a 1.6 Mb mpeg) of the
fuel dump & afterburner show performed by two RAAF F-111 fighter-bombers
during the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, as mentioned in Ed
Majden's mail.

At least this shows that such a fuel dump & afterburner performance does
give a fireball-like phenomena streaking accross the sky, so a report on a
fireball streaking across the sky with pictures of a contrail with a glow at
the end could be in line with such a fuel dump. Yet I am not quite sure
whether the size of it completely fits with what is visible on the Welsh
photographs (although the size of the resulting glow cloud could be related
to the amount of fuel dumped perhaps, or the altitude at which this is
performed, I do not know. I do know that pictures of kerosine trails
exploding in the wake of hit fighter aircraft from WWII can show spectacular
billowing glow clouds). For the moment I prefer to opt for a more simple
solution of a sunlit contrail end. This also because on the second
(Porthcawl) image by Julian Heywood some cirrus clouds can be seen low at
the horizon, which do light up brightly (similarly bright as the glow at the
end of the trail - which is, as a.o. Rob Matson and me have argued from
several lines of evidence now, an aircraft contrail, and simply not
compatible with a bolide dust-trail). As the sun only just set as seen from
the earth surface (sun altitude less than 2 degrees) I think this might be
the point where the aircraft (and its trail) emerges out of the shade into
the sunlight. As there would be air temperature variation there (with
resulting airflows), this might actually be the reason why the trail
broadens there and then disappears.

- Marco

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Marco Langbroek

marco.langbroek_at_wanadoo.nl
meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek

"What seest thou else
 In the dark backward and abysm of time?"

                            William Shakespeare
                            The Tempest act I scene 2
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Received on Tue 07 Oct 2003 07:16:04 AM PDT