Why isn't possible this is cloud formation from a low pressure region along the wings as they pass through different temp/moisture/pressure layers?

I couldn't find any exactly matching photos, but let's assume this is a KC-10.
http://clemsonpilot.com/pacaf/KC10.jpg
http://www.wagnersonline.com/photogallery/airforce/KC-10a.jpg
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/transport-m/kc10/kc10_07.jpg


Those are not nozzles. Those are control surfaces and part of the flaps. Is it possible they are dumping fuel? I think the more obvious explanation is to think pressure changes. But I do wonder why there are not normal contrails as seen in this picture (but the plane might have been descending):
http://chamorrobible.org/images/photos/gpw-200702-71-UnitedStates-DefenseVisualCenter-DFST9904792-Antarctic-sun-USAF-KC-10-Extender-refueling-aircraft
-large.jpg

What exactly are we seeing? The shockwaves -- rapid high and low pressure -- cause water vapor to condense into clouds and then evaporate back into gaseous form?

>> ^cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?


One person with extraordinary vision, coupled with technological know-how, engineering brilliance and the ability to get his hands dirty and plain-and-simple build what he imagines is a rare thing.

In the case of the Britten bike, this is a partial list of what made his bike special:

1) Partial girder-link front suspension with adjustable anti-dive properties.
-fork-type suspensions compress under braking and extend during acceleration, changing the geometry and handling characteristics of the machine quite drastically during the different driving modes. Britten's suspension design allowed him to control pretty much all variables of suspension geometry under changing load, making the bike behave however the rider wished.
- The rear suspension, while perhaps not as revolutionary, was a beautiful piece. It was essentially a carbon-fibre banana swing-arm with a linkage to the adjustable shock/spring assembly. If you look at the bike you'll see that there's no spring/shock assembly near the rear suspension, rather note the spring/shock assembly directly behind the front wheel- this is for the rear suspension! The front shock assembly is hidden in the front suspension linkage and cowling.

2) The engine itself was a stressed-member.
-While certainly not unheard of, Britten took the concept to an extreme, essentially eliminating the frame from the motorcycle. The front and rear suspensions essentially bolted directly to the engine, thus saving many kilos over contemporary designs. Take a look at any current MotoGP or Superbike- most use the engine as a partial stressed-member, but they all have frame members linking the engine, steering heads and seat-assemblies. Britten really only had a vestigial sub-frame for the rider's seat.

3) Well-controlled aerodynamics and fully-ducted cooling system
-Britten paid close attention to airflow over, around and through his bike. Look how cleanly the rider's body tucks into the bodywork. He paid close attention to details, notice how clean the entire assembly is- no exposed wiring, nothing dangling into the airflow, that incredibly sleek rear swing-arm and rear tire hugger. This keeps the airflow smooth and un-disturbed. Motorcycles aren't terribly aerodynamic machines in the first place, but a wise man once said God is in the details.
-The engine itself is a water cooled design, but where's the radiator? It's in a fully-sealed duct directly beneath the rider's seat. High-pressure air is inlet from the front of the bike, through the radiator and is exhausted into the low pressure area beneath the rider and above/ahead of the rear wheel. Greater cooling equals higher power potential.

4) The motor
- 999cc 60 degree V-Twin, belt-driven DOHC design, twin injectors per cylinder, sophisticated electronic ignition, hand-made carbon fibre velocity stacks, wet sump. The motor was designed to breathe hard, pumping out torque and horsepower (166 hp @ 11800 rpm- not sure about the torque figures), and run cool and reliably under racing conditions. Nothing here that any other manufacturer couldn't have figured out on their own, but Britten had the insight and the will to make the best motor in the world at the time. The 60 degree configuration was, I assume chosen for packaging reasons. Normally this configuration would have bad primary balance characteristics, but Britten engineered his to such tight tolerances that the engine ran smoothly right up to redline (12500 rpm) without using a balance shaft.
I'll also point out here that Britten wasn't above using someone else's part if it was better than he could make himself- the gearbox was from a Suzuki superbike, and the cylinder liners and voltage regulator (both of which failed at the Daytona race in '92- the latter costing Britten the win) were from Ducati.

5) Carbon Fibre
- While Carbon Fibre had been around for 2 decades or so at this point, nobody had used it so extensively. Britten used the material for bodywork, wheels, engine parts, suspension girders and the rear swing-arm. There is still no other bike, not even the current Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP bike, that uses so much of this exotic material. The stuff then, as it is now, was hugely expensive and challenging to engineer for different applications. Britten made everything himself, in his garage, figuring it out as he went. This kept the total weight of the bike to a hugely impressive 138 kg.

Keep in mind that he did all of the above in 1991 and 1992, with the help of several neighbors and one part-time machinist, in his backyard shed! He made the bodywork by hand, using a wire frame and hot melt glue, crafting the wind-cheating shape and cooling ducting purely by eye. He cast the aluminum engine parts himself, heat-treating them in his wife's pottery kiln, and cooling the heat-treated parts with water from his swimming pool!

Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki... any one of these manufactures could today reproduce and expand on what Britten accomplished almost single-handedly. None of them will- there's too much at stake for them. It's far safer to stick with the tried-and-true, making small evolutionary changes over the years. A true visionary achiever (to coin a term) like Britten comes along only every once in a great while.

I suppose that this is what was really lost when John Britten died... vision, engineering acuity, hands-on knowledge, and pure will. Touched with a little craziness.

In reply to this comment by cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?

>> ^cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?


One person with extraordinary vision, coupled with technological know-how, engineering brilliance and the ability to get his hands dirty and plain-and-simple build what he imagines is a rare thing.

In the case of the Britten bike, this is a partial list of what made his bike special:

1) Partial girder-link front suspension with adjustable anti-dive properties.
-fork-type suspensions compress under braking and extend during acceleration, changing the geometry and handling characteristics of the machine quite drastically during the different driving modes. Britten's suspension design allowed him to control pretty much all variables of suspension geometry under changing load, making the bike behave however the rider wished.
- The rear suspension, while perhaps not as revolutionary, was a beautiful piece. It was essentially a carbon-fibre banana swing-arm with a linkage to the adjustable shock/spring assembly. If you look at the bike you'll see that there's no spring/shock assembly near the rear suspension, rather note the spring/shock assembly directly behind the front wheel- this is for the rear suspension! The front shock assembly is hidden in the front suspension linkage and cowling.

2) The engine itself was a stressed-member.
-While certainly not unheard of, Britten took the concept to an extreme, essentially eliminating the frame from the motorcycle. The front and rear suspensions essentially bolted directly to the engine, thus saving many kilos over contemporary designs. Take a look at any current MotoGP or Superbike- most use the engine as a partial stressed-member, but they all have frame members linking the engine, steering heads and seat-assemblies. Britten really only had a vestigial sub-frame for the rider's seat.

3) Well-controlled aerodynamics and fully-ducted cooling system
-Britten paid close attention to airflow over, around and through his bike. Look how cleanly the rider's body tucks into the bodywork. He paid close attention to details, notice how clean the entire assembly is- no exposed wiring, nothing dangling into the airflow, that incredibly sleek rear swing-arm and rear tire hugger. This keeps the airflow smooth and un-disturbed. Motorcycles aren't terribly aerodynamic machines in the first place, but a wise man once said God is in the details.
-The engine itself is a water cooled design, but where's the radiator? It's in a fully-sealed duct directly beneath the rider's seat. High-pressure air is inlet from the front of the bike, through the radiator and is exhausted into the low pressure area beneath the rider and above/ahead of the rear wheel. Greater cooling equals higher power potential.

4) The motor
- 999cc 60 degree V-Twin, belt-driven DOHC design, twin injectors per cylinder, sophisticated electronic ignition, hand-made carbon fibre velocity stacks, wet sump. The motor was designed to breathe hard, pumping out torque and horsepower (166 hp @ 11800 rpm- not sure about the torque figures), and run cool and reliably under racing conditions. Nothing here that any other manufacturer couldn't have figured out on their own, but Britten had the insight and the will to make the best motor in the world at the time. The 60 degree configuration was, I assume chosen for packaging reasons. Normally this configuration would have bad primary balance characteristics, but Britten engineered his to such tight tolerances that the engine ran smoothly right up to redline (12500 rpm) without using a balance shaft.
I'll also point out here that Britten wasn't above using someone else's part if it was better than he could make himself- the gearbox was from a Suzuki superbike, and the cylinder liners and voltage regulator (both of which failed at the Daytona race in '92- the latter costing Britten the win) were from Ducati.

5) Carbon Fibre
- While Carbon Fibre had been around for 2 decades or so at this point, nobody had used it so extensively. Britten used the material for bodywork, wheels, engine parts, suspension girders and the rear swing-arm. There is still no other bike, not even the current Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP bike, that uses so much of this exotic material. The stuff then, as it is now, was hugely expensive and challenging to engineer for different applications. Britten made everything himself, in his garage, figuring it out as he went. This kept the total weight of the bike to a hugely impressive 138 kg.

Keep in mind that he did all of the above in 1991 and 1992, with the help of several neighbors and one part-time machinist, in his backyard shed! He made the bodywork by hand, using a wire frame and hot melt glue, crafting the wind-cheating shape and cooling ducting purely by eye. He cast the aluminum engine parts himself, heat-treating them in his wife's pottery kiln, and cooling the heat-treated parts with water from his swimming pool!

Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki... any one of these manufactures could today reproduce and expand on what Britten accomplished almost single-handedly. None of them will- there's too much at stake for them. It's far safer to stick with the tried-and-true, making small evolutionary changes over the years. A true visionary achiever (to coin a term) like Britten comes along only every once in a great while.

I suppose that this is what was really lost when John Britten died... vision, engineering acuity, hands-on knowledge, and pure will. Touched with a little craziness.

^ disagree. Looks fast as hell and completely real to me. I don't know how fast you have to be going to have that low pressure halo around you, but I could believe that was near mach 1.

Probably video editting.

It was travelling WAY too slowly to be supersonic. Just look at the scale of the boats. I'm guessing it was either some jet boat editted, or else the water vapor above the lake was being vaporized around teh jet flames/low pressure?

I would also add that you can see the visible effects of the trailing high/low pressure created by the car: grass, hair, etc; moving away/towards the car's path.

The editing or rendering would be fairly obvious.

Sorry? Would it be all better if the duct tape was renamed "Chemical Anti-Intrusory Sealant"?

As much as i hate to admit it, MarineGunrock is totally right. Think about any situation involving low pressure gas.

Want to commit suicide? Well, sit in your car in the garage, turn the engine on, but first make the car's interior air-tight using duct tape. You'll die because your body will use up all the breathable air, not because of car fumes. There won't be a single car-created toxin inside at all. Then you could take a deep breath, open the car and exit via the door. There's a reason people put a hose-pipe from the exhaust through the window. You could live off the oxygen in a car even if there was mustard gas outside in your garage.

You could climb inside a human balloon like a crazed german fetishist and live quite comfortably for as long as the oxygen in that balloon held out for you in a room full of nerve gas.

Submarines too, in fact. If you had the tape strong enough and sticky enough, you could TAPE two metal skips together and submerge yourself in safety.

What's this guy saying? The only negative thing about duct tape is that you're sealing yourself in an air tight container with a limited supply of air. But then you can conserve the air by doing things such as sleeping, and make the entire air supply in your house last you for a few days, and by that time maybe it'll be safe enough to go out, or you'll be rescued by people with portable air supplies.

Or, you know, don't make your house air tight, and die in a dissolving pool of your own lungs, bowels and feces.

(I don't find him funny anyway, but i hope people aren't upvoting for this (lack of) observation!)

Water boarding is low pressure water too.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Yes, a little cruel- but probably no harm done- looked like low pressure water streams - so no different than whay they'd get in the shower. I did LOL.

no question its a plasma. there are no phosphors in incandescent light bulbs, just silica powder for light diffusion. Its the low pressure argon fill in the bulb that is glowing, try it with a clear bulb for a second or two you'll definitely see it is a gas discharge phenomenon. also fluorescent bulbs and neon tubes no matter what the excitation source will always have a plasma inside if they are giving off light. the definition of a plasma is only a gas where some number of the atoms have had their electrons ripped off thus making the whole gas conductive. a candle flame is a very low level plasma (you can even stick electrodes in it and pass an oscillating current through it to make sound!)

Sorry EMPIRE but during this video is when the sound barrier is broken. You don't hear it, and it has nothing to do with the end of the clip with the SRB jettisoning. As pho3n1x points out those are Prandtl-Glauert type clouds which only occur from about .95 to 1.05 the speed of sound. The vapor trails you are speaking of are created by low pressure areas above wings or on trailing edges.