A lot of unusual aircraft activity today in the North of Ireland

Further to my last post Delta Airlines Boeing 767 DAL161 is the only one that is messed up in the flight software. It departed Milan, Italy rather than JFK, US.

www.flightradar24.com...

reply to post by mtok7

And I could see there had been a lot more planes that had flew in the same direction earlier.

What did you see that let you know more planes had flown that way earlier?

reply to post by tsurfer2000h


There was another group of five that went by half an hour earlier, so probably some lingering contrails
See FR24

Originally posted by mtok7
And I could see there had been a lot more planes that had flew in the same direction earlier......

Of course you would see a lot more planes and their contrails. The upper air route goes both ways. You are seeing airliners utilising a transatlantic upper air route over Northern Ireland.

Go to the following chart, zoom in and see UN551. Also note the TADEX waypoint.

Upper Air Route South

www.opennav.com...

The aircraft that you are seeing are routing over Northern Ireland using UN551 and making use of waypoint TADEX as they fly out over the Atlantic.

See following guide. It show how airlines and Air Traffic Control make best use of transatlantic routes taking into account head and tailwinds.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by tommyjo


Thanks for the informative info, but this does not explain what others and I saw, in relation to it being a cloudless day with no wind. 15 min later a dark layer of murk descended on the local area. I can only say what I saw be it anomalous weather or chem trail it was certainly unusual.

Originally posted by mtok7
reply to post by tommyjo

 

Thanks for the informative info, but this does not explain what others and I saw, in relation to it being a cloudless day with no wind. 15 min later a dark layer of murk descended on the local area. I can only say what I saw be it anomalous weather or chem trail it was certainly unusual.

edit on 18-12-2012 by mtok7 because: (no reason given)

No wind at ground level does not mean no wind at 30,000 feet, where it's often 50 to 100 mph.

And while it's cloudless where you are, that does not mean is cloudless elsewhere, and the wind can bring moisute and clouds can form quickly. Have a look at the large world view

earthdata.nasa.gov...

Zoom in on Ireland. Lots of clouds around. You can see some the East-West contrails over the north as well.


Looks like fog too, around Derry.

Originally posted by mtok7
reply to post by tommyjo

 

Thanks for the informative info,

Not a problem, thanks for the reply. It is very easy to jump to the wrong conclusions. It does amaze me how many people are completely unaware that they live under or in close proximity to upper air routes. It also amazes me how people can't comprehend that airliners do fly in proximity to each other and perfectly legally. To the untrained observer I admit that they can look dangerously close but in reality they are separated and spaced within the upper air routes. See following videos of airliners. I can fully understand why people can be confused by what they think they are seeing both from the ground and in the air. If you look on You Tube you'll still see passengers and ground observers posting videos of what they think are 'near misses' in the sky. Alarmist non-sense by people that don't understand how ATC and separation works.



How it looks from the air. Perfectly legal and safe.



Next time you look up and think that they are 'too close' then think again. See following video and then re-watch the crossing airliners video again.