Saturday 13 April 2019

Wingtip vortices from jet planes

The planes were even closer on Nab Scar. There's one in the picture above just below the skyline on the left. As the planes banked, they produced vapour trails on each wingtip. A vortex is like a tiny whirlpool of air The aerodynamic shape of a wing means that air travels faster above the wing than below and thus has lower pressure above the wing than below. Hence high pressure air can escape sideways around the end of the wing, looping towards the lower pressure above. Meanwhile, the forward motion of the plane drags this looping air forwards into spirals - the wingtip vortices. The spinning air is at very low pressure. It all happens so quickly that there is no time for thermal energy to flow into the vortex from the surrounding air. So that can't be the source of the extra energy to rotate the vortex. The energy has to come from the internal energy of the air in the vortex. This lowers the temperature of the air and water vapour condenses. This is what I could see. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_vortices