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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, I've always referred tho these as jet streams or jet trails, and never realized there was a specific term/word for it until someone mentioned it on The Weather Channel today while pointing out that contrails now account for a measurable percentage of the cloud cover. Only got one hit on OneLook, so here it is...has anybody heard this before. And, since there's no date of origin, can anybody pinpoint a time of coinage? Perhaps it was used in the official aviation lingo from the introduction of jet aircraft? But the lack of documentation would seem to suggest it's coinage is fairly recent. The etymology is pretty simple: condensation plus trail = contrail:
from the American Heritage dictionary
con·trail (kntrl)
n.
A visible trail of streaks of condensed water vapor or ice crystals sometimes forming in the wake of an aircraft. Also called vapor trail.
------------------------------------------------------------[con(densation) trail.]
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old hand
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Main Entry:con£trail
Pronunciation:*k*n-*tr*l
Function:noun
Etymology:condensation trail
Date:1943
: streaks of condensed water vapor created in the air by an airplane or rocket at high altitudes
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©M-W
Having been around plane nuts most of my life, I am genuinely surprised that anyone could be unfamiliar with this word.
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Carpal Tunnel
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>Only got one hit on OneLook
try the singular form, Juan.
1945 Sat. Even. Post Jan. 18 With no wind and intense cold, taxiing planes leave ice-crystal contrails behind them, just as Fortresses do at 30,000 feet over Germany. 1952 M. Tripp Faith is Windsock White aircraft contrails feathered against azure blue. 1960 People Nov. 9/2 The boffins' name for aeroplane clouds is ‘contrails’. 1965 R. Heinlein Farnham's Freehold No sign.. of man—not a building, a road, a path, no contrails in the sky.
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veteran
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Also called vapor trail.
I may have heard "contrails" mentioned, but the word never really registered - implying that I heard it in a technical context, of little use to an ordinary bod like yours truly.
I've always called them "vapour trails".
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Pooh-Bah
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I think that, so far as UKn's are concerned, "contrail" is a fairly technical term. I first heard it as a member of the Royal Observer Corps, back in the late 50s, and my wife was familiar with the term from her work for BOAC (the direct descendant of Imperial Airways!) so it was well understood in our household. However, I have had to explain the word to other people from time to time, whereas "vapour trails" is reasonably self-explanatory.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear faldage: thanks for that link. There was in incident in WWII in which a large fleet of
American bombers whose mission was to destroy oilfields at Ploesti Rumania missed their
target by hundreds of miles. The colonel in command was courtmartialed and punished
severely. Not for quite a few years later was it discovered that the jetstream, unknown
of at the time had caused the error. But it was discovered too late to exhonorate the
poor colonel.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I've always called them vapor trails, though I know the term contrail, but that always sounded more like the name of a business to me. I think it's a train or trucking company...
growing up in South Dakota, the sky was always full of vapor trails, and I remember fondly the sonic booms of jets going over, breaking the sound barrier. I've grown up with a love of large, physical sounds; built a screen porch just so I can sit outside during thunderstorms listening to the sound reverberate around the hills of my Vermont home.
formerly known as etaoin...
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I've grown up with a love of large, physical sounds; built a screen porch just so I can sit outside during thunderstorms listening to the sound reverberate around the hills of my Vermont homeNice one, eta. Yes, thunder in the hills is something else, even if they're teeny hills like the South Downs 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks for the date references sjm and tsuwm.
1965 R. Heinlein Farnham's Freehold No sign.. of man—not a building, a road, a path, no contrails in the sky.
Believe that's one Heinlein I missed...but even if I read it (I've always religiously kept a dictionary handy to look up new words I encounter), like Shona said, for some reason the word didn't "stick' with me.
jet stream
Sure, Faldage...meterology is one of my passions, and I'm a Weather Channel nut and hurricane aficionado. But I've always used jet streams as the first choice to describe vapor trails, and that's the term I recall most other folks using, too...could it be a regional thing?
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Carpal Tunnel
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I believe that contrails is the term I've always heard. Chicago, Boston, Flagstaff, Orange County, Upstate New York.
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Carpal Tunnel
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like Fishona, i know the term contrails but i don't think i have ever spoken it.. i speak of vapor trails.
they are more common nowdays, i remember when 90% of transatlantic flights stopped for a final refueling at boston, (Non stops direct from NY to most parts of europe were not common in the early 1960's)-- Now, you can go Nonstop from paris to chicago! (and farther i am sure.. i just don't fly in or out of chicago, so i don't much think about it)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yea, Atomica!
condensation + trail
Edit Oops--never mind! Should have read yours closer, sjm.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Cool, eta--thank you. Interesting; this is something I had never given a thought to, though I shouldn't wonder if all the air traffic doesn't change the actual wind patterns. Whitman, do you happen to know? I guess this was, in fact, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: authorities would never shut down air traffic for 3 days just so the impact of contrails could be studied.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, Jackie, I'm not a scientist, but I would imagine that the phenomenon of a jet crossing a jetstream would be unlikely to make more than local changes to its behaviour. They are caused by a mixture of weather systems and coriolis force, so I figure that there would have to be one hell of a lot of jets flapping about up there to initiate a change.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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I shouldn't wonder if all the air traffic doesn't change the actual wind patterns.
I don't think it likely Jackie. Lived near Pease AFB during Cold War and humongous bombers (SAC) would take off every 15 or 20 seconds and fill the air with contrails. They took off using the Rye Becaon and flew over my back yard. No wind changes - ground to treetops. No weather changes at all were felt or reported.
Contrails is used exclusivelt by all Air Force types I have ever met to designate the white trails left by (especially)jet engines across a blue sky.
I don't think slower piston-driven-engine planes flew high enough to leave contrails.
Anybody?
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Pooh-Bah
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I don't think slower piston-driven-engine planes flew high enough to leave contrails.
Anybody
I have a sort of memory of contrails behind the Lockheed Super-Constellations in the late fifties/early sixties. But I may be wrong, there. By that time, there were jet airliners flying around, as well as military stuff, so I may have got mixed up.
(Although I do have to say that I was pretty hot on aircraft recgonition in those days.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Contrails are a product of a certain combination of humidity and temperature in the atmosphere. The combination occurs most often at higher altitudes. However, Rhube is quite right. One of the most famous photographs of dogfighting during the Battle of Britain shows contrails behind a goodly number of the aircraft which I believe were Messerschmidt 109s and Hurricanes. Not a jet among 'em.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Of course you are both correct, and right, too!
When I thought non-jet I flashed to Piper Cub type puddle jumpers. Of course larger prop planes would fly high enough to leave contrails.
I have these "moments' you see....
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Carpal Tunnel
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Just for the record: I've heard people refer to those puffy streams of condensation only as contrails.
I wonder whether you might refer to streams of condescension
as contrails, too? Just a random thought here...
WW
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