Even though people have been traveling by plane for more than a century, the design of airships and the mechanism of their work is far from clear to everyone. For example, many people wonder why an airplane leaves white trails in the sky. More about this in the material “DIP“.
People who care about the environment, but are not aware of how airplanes work, are sure that the white trail in the sky is harmful exhaust from aircraft engines. There is some truth in this, but still, they are not the main part of the “white band”.
The trail of an airplane in the sky is a contrail or contrail. It occurs during a flight in the upper troposphere at an altitude of 8-10 km when the temperature overboard is kept at -40-50 degrees Celsius.
When an aircraft burns aviation fuel, the smallest heated particles enter the air, around which cold moisture from the air immediately condenses. The huge amount of particles, coupled with the colossal speed of an airliner, with which heated air is ejected from the aircraft’s turbines, causes the condensate to transform into ice crystals. Thanks to this, a white stripe is formed that follows the plane across the sky.
In other words, it is an artificial cloud created by turbojet engines.
What is curious, if the air is humid and the plane flies high, a clear white trail in the sky can stretch for tens and even hundreds of kilometers. If the air is dry and there is not enough moisture, the trace is almost invisible.