High altitude aircraft question (1 Viewer)

[Neil J]

Hello, I live in Anchorage, Alaska and every once in awhile, probably a few times a week, I see some high flying aircraft that leave long contrails flying mostly East to West but sometimes the other way around. Sometimes I have seen up to 4 or 5 basically flying parallel to each other. I figure they are military aircraft but I am hoping someone on the forum will have some definite information. Thanks, Eric.

 

[Mark Romero]

I have flown from Chicago to Tokyo and back several times and we always fly over Anchorage. AFAIK this is the route to get to Asia for most airlines.

 

[Philip_G]

that's a pretty common route.
I ran a quick fliteplan to tokyo and here is an image of a pretty typical great circle route.
the other picture is of the high enroute airways off the coast of alaska.

www.onlinemac.com/users/philip/route1.jpg
www.onlinemac.com/users/philip/airways.jpg

 

[Andrew W]

Why don't you just fly straight???
The earth is really flat you know.

http://www.flat-earth.org/

 

[Kirk Gunn]

Neill - do you see multiple plans flying parellel together in formation, or are they at different times ?

 

[Neil J]

Thanks for the replies. I know Anchorage is a hub for international flights but these planes don't stop here in Anchorage, They just fly straight over and you can always spot them easily on clear days because of the long white contrails. As for Kirk's question they are not flying in a tight formation but like I said there have been times when you can see up to 4 or 5 in the sky basically together maybe only a few minutes apart. I'm wondering if they are some type of long range bombers flying on drills heading to...Russia?

 

[Kirk Gunn]

If they are a few minutes apart, they are most likely commercial airliners on their way to Asia. Get a globe and some string to learn about the Great Circle Route.

You'll see you live in some very popular airspace !

 

[JamesHl]

Definitely airliners. I used to live near an airport and sometimes at night you could spot 5 or more in the sky at once in the same landing pattern.

 

[Neil J]

Maybe they are international flights just flying over head but not stopping in Anchorage. They are definately not coming in for a landing because by my judgment they are at least 3 times higher than the commercial jets that are flying over the mountains that are coming in to join the landing patterns. Also on very clear days one can see the contrails heading west all the way to the horizon. The commercial jets coming in from Seattle or whatever head west then turn around over the inlet. This is pretty stupid but the reason I was wondering if they were some type of military aircraft is because of the movie By Dawn's Early Light, I know a real credible source, in that movie the bombers were flying over Alaska to their positive control point where they recieved their mission orders for going into Russia, at least in the movie. Don't think I'm crazy now please.

 

[Jay H]

Hey, another Anchorage HTF member. (nope, I'm not from Los Anchorage, I've just been there twice) When I flew to Hong Kong, we went over Alaska but we didn't stop or connect through Anchorage. However, my parents have many many years ago, they had a stopover in Anchorage.

Of course, you guys do have a bunch of AFBs up there, Richardson and Eielson (Sp???) and other bases closer to the Beiring Sea.

Could be UFOs!!

Jay

 

[Philip_G]

As for Kirk's question they are not flying in a tight formation but like I said there have been times when you can see up to 4 or 5 in the sky basically together maybe only a few minutes apart.

The traffic over the pacific and across the atlantic is a lot greater than most people would expect I think. If you look at the airways over AK they could quite easily be on seperate airways, or just following each other.

 

[Cary_H]

My initial thought when I read this post was that this sounds alot like the contrail patterns from aircraft seeding the atmosphere. There are many groups out there who contend that the U.S. government is covertly spraying some sort of chemicals from aircraft into our skies.
Speculation just what and why ranges all the way from experiments to alter/control the weather to alter/control us,....as farfetched as that sounds.
Not long ago I read an article around this. The phenomena of cross-thatched contrail patterns is relatively widespread.
A quick couple of searches in Google ought to give you all you need. I'd start out with something along the lines of,..."aircraft contrail patterns" + CIA....and make variations keeping with this theme 'til you get what you want.

 

[Neil J]

Nice, sometimes the contrails do develop into clouds but most of the time they disappear after a few minutes. With all the information so far I'm thinking that they are probably just commercial aircraft flying over without stopping. Maybe I'll try to get some pictures next time and try to figure out how to post them. Thanks.

 

[CharlesD]

You can see the same thing in many places, especially in areas with an airport (they have navigational transponders), the parallel trails are just commercial planes on similar routes maintaining minimal vertical and horizontal separation.

Contrails typically dissipate in a short period of time but under certain circumstances occasionally they can become the "seeds" for wider cloud formation which has lead some meterologicaly impaired individuals to come up with some very implausible conspiracy theories.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

If they are commercial, they'd be up there at the same time, so write down the time and the day of the week. I have a feeling that any OTHER aircraft would not put themselves on any kind of a schedule.

Glenn