Weird California sighting

Been following this thread for awhile. While I have no background in aircraft, I find them fascinating and wanted to share a link which has helped detail some of the frames/programs mentioned.
List of experimental aircraft

originally posted by: Northernhollow
a reply to: BASSPLYR

Ahem...

Ahh wasnt that a planned design for a heavy shuttle lifter to get it to a high altitude then release it so the shuttles main engines could finish the orbital entry? And that shuttle has dual tailfins.

I am long time follower but first time poster in this forum. I wasn't sure where to put this but here it is. I live in the southwest of the country. My wife took these photos at work last Wednesday around 12:30 p.m. She said whatever made this contrail was moving very fast from west to east and went from horizon to horizon in a matter of minutes. It was a windy day and I thought it was strange the contrail didn't dissipate. She said there were others planes in the sky making contrails, but those all dissipated rapidly. I thought it looked very odd compared to others I've seen. It also appears to be above the other contrails. Thoughts?

I'm in southern Ontario, Canada and contrails like that are very common. I assume it has something to do with wind direction, but we see them all the time.

a reply to: Roundsound

Those are very common contrail formations. When the atmospheric conditions are right, I see airliners produce identical contrails on a daily basis. Unfortunately, some years ago, somebody took a picture of one and described it as "doughnuts on a rope" and narratively connected it to a mythical secret aircraft. Now, lots of people freak out when they see contrails like this.

a reply to: Shadowhawk

It was my understanding that the second test article had a different lay up on the wings to alter the behavior of the aeroelastic divergence. This is from memory from years ago so I would welcome any clarification.

a reply to: Roundsound

In your photo, you've got other persistent contrails, so the observation that all the others dissipated rapidly is not right. Also, if you look at the types of clouds in the photo, you've got cirrus and cirro-cumulus, which is a magic condition for persistent contrail formation. Those cloud types tell you that you've got saturated upper atmo air that's very unstable.

And I bet it rained within 24 hours.

Thanks for the info. The only thing that made me wonder was the fact that she said it appeared to be moving very fast. How long does an airliner take to go horizon to horizon?

a reply to: Roundsound

Depends on the type of plane. There are some private jets that cruise at 0.9 mach.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Mummm...I loves me come Citation X!

a reply to: Imperium Americana

I'd buy one of those right now, but I'm saving up for my BBJ 747.

Long time lurker here, but just read this whole thread and a few others pertaining to a certain topic. Its taken me a whole week to get through it all and I just wanted to thank everyone for such great info/discussion

a reply to: goobypls1234

certainly lots of eye opening info when you look back.

Have I mentioned that Wyoming is an interesting place?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Isnt that where the boomless demonstrators are being tested.

Also was it Wyoming where a member relayed his sighting of a aircraft using plasma actuators in its exhaust. Maybe demonstrator for that new augmentative turbine. Or the new aural stealty tech.

Either way. Wyoming both beautiful landscape wise and facinating for cutting edge tech.

Wyoming is the USA state where very few people live , less than Nevada for sure a good place for testing new Platform.

a reply to: Zaphod58


Isn't Wyoming where the movie "Close encounters of the third kind" was set? It must be the aliens..........
This is a conspiracy site after all Bwahahahaha!!

What do you think is being tested Zaph?

a reply to: Kurokage

Which one? I've seen two testbeds and one that may have been a testbed, but could have been a normal low level, although it was at night, so might not have been. Two of those were last night.

a reply to: Zaphod58
There is no major AFB in Wyoming ? a flying zone may be ?

a reply to: darksidius

They're flying from other locations over Wyoming. There are bases there but they don't test aircraft.