Bizarre question of the day: Jet trails [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

chris jordan

29-Nov-2006, 12:29

Hi guys, wierd question of the day: I'm looking for a place I can go and photograph lots of jets flying over at high altitude with jet trails. I'm doing a new photo project that will require a few hundred shots of jets and jet trails, all taken on a sunny day. I'd like to go somewhere for the shortest possible time and get the largest possible number of jets with trails. Maybe Las Vegas, or Los Angeles? Denver? Is there anyone here who lives in one of these places who can confirm whether lots of jets fly over there at high altitude? Any other suggestions reasonably close to Seattle?

~cj

Ralph Barker

29-Nov-2006, 12:45

My suggestion, Chris, would be to look for a convenient location that is between major airports on heavily-travelled routes, rather than near the large hubs. That way, you get them flying at altitude, rather than coming in for landings. For example, I often see multiple contrails here (near Albuquerque, NM), often going in different directions. But, usually only in the afternoons and with limited frequency.

Steve Hamley

29-Nov-2006, 12:51

Chris,

Anywhere I'm at trying to shoot a sunrise or sunset.

Steve

tim atherton

29-Nov-2006, 12:53

Is there an easy way of finding out where the navigation beacons are located? We used to have one located in the woods (far from a major airport) about half a mile away from our house. There was a regular stream of high flying airliners with con-trails using the beacon as a marker...

The other thing is you need to place yourself on a major route from a-b - trans pacific/trans-alaskan/trans-polar etc...?

Maybe there's an anorak plane-spotters list somewhere where they would known this stuff?

Donald Qualls

29-Nov-2006, 13:02

Oh, boy. Watch the Homeland Security guys swarm around the VORs and newer equivalent, now...

Marko

29-Nov-2006, 13:02

Denver should do fine, it's a major air "crossroads". Most coast to coast flights pass there.

Eric Biggerstaff

29-Nov-2006, 13:10

I can agree with Denver, they are all over the place.

Mark Sampson

29-Nov-2006, 13:15

It's really a question of having the right temperature/humidity conditions at altitude (usually over 20,000ft) to produce the ice crystals we see as contrails. They aren't guaranteed on any given day. A meteorology site or perhaps a pilot's site like AOPA could explain it better. That said, I've often seen contrails heading in directions I couldn't figure out- great-circle transcontinental or transoceanic routes perhaps.

Michael Gordon

29-Nov-2006, 13:15

Chris: LA isn't the place (planes are too low on approach to the airports)! I would recommend the California desert as a great place to shoot (especially anywhere off of Hwy 10 or Hwy 15 which x-country planes tend to follow) - you won't be encumbered by people and structures. As you likely know, you need the right amount of vapor and cold temperatures at altitude for maximum contrails. You won't find such contrails daily; time your trip appropriately. Good luck.

Ben Hopson

29-Nov-2006, 13:18

Hi Chris, Best of luck on your new project. I was at Zion NP from late Oct through mid Nov this year and there was no shortage of contrails, especially late afternoon. I have also noticed on several trips to Death Valley that on some days there was plenty of air traffic leaving its vapor art in the sky. I can not say if this is a regular occurance in either location, but the flights I saw probably originated in, or were destined for Las Vegas.

Robert Hall

29-Nov-2006, 13:21

I get a lot in south eastern Utah. South of Moab there is a "crossroads" for aircraft. I have a shot with an Anasazi ruin with 20 trails across the sky. (Winter afternoons is best)

chris jordan

29-Nov-2006, 13:24

Thanks a ton guys, lots of good ideas. A trip to the desert southwest seems in order anyway... (but what a strange reason to go there, eh?).

roteague

29-Nov-2006, 13:40

Hawaii is definitely out. :D

Brian Schall

29-Nov-2006, 16:09

At times, there are lots of contrails over Albuquerque. I've counted up to 8 at one time but can't remember what time of year.

wfwhitaker

29-Nov-2006, 16:36

Yosemite.

Ernest Purdum

29-Nov-2006, 17:08

Near a military training base might work Oops, not too near

Andy Eads

29-Nov-2006, 21:14

Chris,
Check out this website for a fabulous visualization of where the birds are flying.
http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/faa/
Good hunting!
Andy

Pat Kearns

30-Nov-2006, 11:27

If you are thinking about the Southwest, Monument Valley in the morning had plenty of jet contrails the last time I was there.

Matthew Cordery

30-Nov-2006, 13:42

Dawn at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley.... Just look east and watch the train of jets stretching off to the horizon.

Lon Overacker

30-Nov-2006, 13:42

Chris,

May I ask what the project entails? book? environment?

I've always been fascinated with contrails/jet trails, but never really spent any time specifically photographing them. As has been said, anywhere between major hubs and below major flight patterns. Here in northern CA, we get the north-south, Seattle/LA route as well as all the east-west routes coming in to SFO, OAK and SJ.

I agree with Mark that atmospheric conditions play a big part in whether or not the trails remain visible, allowing for the winds to create patterns and such. Also, they seem more prevalent around sunset/sunrise. Yosemite has always been a spot where they're noticable, probably more because you notice them and wish they weren't there! I recall a sunrise at Mono Lake where I counted at least 15 individual contrails.

I think the desert SW would be fine. Death Valley may be too far north, but somewhere in the Mojave. Hard to predict though.

Just for fun, here's a contrail I caught in Yosemite years ago. Fascinating how the contrail casts a shadow on the upper atmosphere!

Good luck!
Lon

http://www.capturingtime.com/images/fm/211032D.jpg
http://www.capturingtime.com/images/fm/211029D.jpg

GPS

30-Nov-2006, 15:03

You have not only a nice shade on the higher cirrostratus but also a nice hallo on it. A nice picture.

GPS

30-Nov-2006, 15:06

It's a halo, of course...

George Stewart

30-Nov-2006, 16:08

I would recommend southern Utah during the winter. It should have many clear days (perhaps February) and its share of popular jet routes. You can get all six high altitude en route charts here:

http://www.sportys.com/acb/basket/purchase.cfm?&DID=19&Product_ID=4083&baskdo=addproduct&qty=1

The Bryce Canyon VOR (about 7 nautical miles west of the airport) is popular for aircraft bound for southern California, and is far enough east that most aircraft will have yet to start descent to lower and warmer altitudes. I'd recommend a little to the north and/or west (20 miles or so in each direction) so that your camera is not pointed vertically.

Jim Ewins

30-Nov-2006, 17:21

I'd second Gordon. The Mojave and Eastern Sierra are close to LAX George AFB, there was one also in San Berdo. I'm almost sure you'd find them at the Alabama Hills when you don't.

Harley Goldman

1-Dec-2006, 16:31

Yosemite. Planes fly over all day long. It is common to have 8 contrails overhead at the same time. Plenty of other great stuff to shoot when you are not looking up.

DrPablo

1-Dec-2006, 16:57

Go somewhere very cold. The contrails last much longer when its cold out, and during mid-winter here in Boston the contrails seem to be criss-crossing each other all day. Chicago would be a good idea -- flat, so few obstructions, one of the busiest airports in the world, and very cold.

The other cool thing in Boston is that you can get a great overlook of one of the runways, and actually capture light trails of planes taking off. I took both of these on 4x5:
http://www.pbase.com/drpablo74/image/66501446.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/drpablo74/image/66502044.jpg

Keith Pitman

7-Dec-2006, 12:07

I was on the Colorado plains yesterday (Pawnee Grassland area/north of Ft. Morgan) and there were lots of contrails. This morning coming down to Denver from the southwest, there were a lot over Denver.

Michael Gordon

7-Dec-2006, 16:16

Awesome photographs, Dr. Pablo.

Mike Cockerham

11-Dec-2006, 19:26

Check your local Black Helicopter group, looking for vapor trails.

adrian tyler

12-Dec-2006, 01:22

hi chris! i've been taking photos of jet trails for about 4 years now, my house in the toledan mountains is right on the flightpath from madrid / seville, i just got a 400mm telephoto too for the 4x5 to get closer, they look great mounted up together, let me know if you want to see samples...

Robert Hughes

10-Jan-2007, 11:24

Montgomery County, Maryland - between Baltimore and Washington DC. It's a major high altitude thoroughfare for all East Coast commercial flights. The Washington DC flight restrictions create a bottleneck so that commercial flights have to make a wide turn. On a clear day I can see 4 planes every 5 minutes, with perhaps a dozen parallel and cross-hatched contrails.

PS these are not the black helicopters - they prefer to fly at about 500 feet over my house. What a racket!

walter23

10-Jan-2007, 11:56

kmgibbs

10-Jan-2007, 13:59

www.flightaware.com and www.flytecomm.com are two websites that will allow you to track any commercial flight in the U.S.

As said earlier though, contrails are going to depend on temp. and humidity at altitude. Typically the planes are between 30k and 40k feet altitudes enroute. With a little research you could figure out the most congested routes. :)

Aaron van de Sande

11-Jan-2007, 12:20

I dunno, the contrails in NM fade pretty fast. In NJ they seemed to last forever, especially in the summer. I don't know if the humidity has anything to do with it.

GPS

11-Jan-2007, 14:21

Not humidity but the temperature of the air in that altitude. Warm air - short duration, cold air - longer duration. You can make a weather forecast on this - the longer and more durable the contrail is, the more possibility of a change for colder weather there is. (simply because the cold air will be installed).

QT Luong

9-Apr-2007, 18:31

For those interested in the result, Chris has now posted the image on his web site.
Chris, if you are still here, I am really curious about how you produced the image !

Kirk Gittings

9-Apr-2007, 23:05

Notice how his site is now subtitled "Chris Jordan: Photographic Arts" rather than Chris Jordan Photography as it used to be. This reflects, I assume, his current approach to image making, which is based in photography but highly constructed.

Salty

10-Apr-2007, 07:24

I'm about 20 miles ("as the crow flies") from LA International, but I see the vapor trails at high altitude all the time. I can only assume that the jets are going to Washington State, Hawaii, etc.

The down side is that on cloudy evenings some of the airliners make their approaches low enough that the engine noise actually vibrates the windows. Since the AeroMexico airliner crashed a mile from here 20 years ago, I spend a lot of time watching the airliners overhead.

GPS

10-Apr-2007, 08:19

When I was living in NY, about 15 miles from J.F. Kennedy airport (a few steps from the place the plane with Dominicans crashed later), the planes were flying just overheads although each time they did, they were fined for it. While I didn't like the noise I appreciated it when once leaving for a trip to Malaysia - from the plane's window, about 600m in the air, I was flying right over my car parked in the driveway of my house... That was the closest I got to my house in an airplane!

Sal Santamaura

22-Sep-2007, 18:10

For those interested in the result, Chris has now posted the image on his web site.
Chris, if you are still here, I am really curious about how you produced the image !The last 10 minutes 30 seconds of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS this week (the one mostly about Rachel Carson) was a feature on Chris and his work, including the Jet Trails image. Here's a link to the show's site:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

tim atherton

22-Sep-2007, 18:34

Chris has also been nominated for the REAL Photography Award (btw REAL as in ING Real Estate, not "real" as in analogue... :) )

http://www.realphotographyaward.com/

http://www.realphotographyaward.com/nominees.jsp

a potential 50,000 Euros isn't to be sniffed at

Kirk Gittings

22-Sep-2007, 20:21

Bob Thall is a nominee too. There is some very interesting work there. In an email conversation a month or so ago, Chris was talking about a "new aesthetic" in landscape photography. This group is almost an exhibit of that.

Wobblie

23-Sep-2007, 13:58

The last 10 minutes 30 seconds of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS this week (the one mostly about Rachel Carson) was a feature on Chris and his work, including the Jet Trails image. Here's a link to the show's site:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

I saw this today too. Nice work Chris! I know he used to post here and shoot with 8x10. I liked his work...ala Edward Burtynski. I didn't see any use of a view camera though Chris only a damn D200. But I guess you do what you gotta do, the message in the end should trump the medium right!? I like his message of bringing awareness to the wastefulness of modern western consumerism. Anyway to bring attention to that is good. cheers!