ChrisPerkins From Switzerland, joined May 2006, 13 posts, RR: 0 Posted (2 years 2 months 3 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 2055 times:
Hi Everyone,
Flying 2'000ft below an Airbus A330 (FL390) on the same routing I noticed a contrail-like vapor trail forming behind the fuselage. It was only very faint, so not visible from the earth's surface, and it only formed for a few seconds, then vanished, only to reappear roughly a minute later or so.
The reason for this mini fuselage-trail remains unclear to me, yet I have 2 theories:
1) Water released from the fuselage. The origin of the water? Don't think that water drained through galley sink would form a visible trail. So maybe condensation water from the Air Conditioning unit? But why would it only appear on intervalls and not constantly? And it would probably not be that much water released either...
2) Air relesased from fuselage. Maybe also through A/C unit - warm (cabin temperature) air would be humid and at high pressure compared to outside air, so would rapidly expand and maybe form fuselage-trail. Altough, as far as I am aware, this release of air happens constantly so no explanation for the intervall phenomenon.
Didn't mean to mislead you with my theories - maybe the reason is something else?
...who has the correct answer?
cotparampguy From United States of America, joined Jul 2008, 204 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (2 years 2 months 3 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 2028 times:
I believe what you saw was water coming out of the drain mast. There are pictures on the internet (even on here) of that happening. You'd be surprised how much water they dump out of there.
tdscanuck From Canada, joined Jan 2006, 12709 posts, RR: 80 Reply 3, posted (2 years 2 months 3 weeks 7 hours ago) and read 1908 times:
Quoting ChrisPerkins (Thread starter): 1) Water released from the fuselage. The origin of the water? Don't think that water drained through galley sink would form a visible trail.
I second cotparampguy that it's probably drain mast water...that's intermittent and would appear to come off the back of the fuselage (the drain mast only goes about a foot away from the fuselage).
gatorman96 From United States of America, joined Dec 2005, 696 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (2 years 2 months 2 weeks 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 1657 times:
Fly2HMO From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 5, posted (2 years 2 months 2 weeks 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 1640 times:
I hear that when you see a brown streak behind the galley drain masts on the fuselage it's mainly due to coffee being dumped and sticking to the fuselage.
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