I've video taped planes leaving contrails in patterns. It seems pilots don't like to fly through a contrail, so they keep laying a new one parallel to the earlier ones. When you have cross traffic, it creates a grid pattern. If they last a long time, you end up with an overcast sky.
It looks freaky. Like they are doing it on purpose. You can see satellite images of extreme overcast in heavy traffic patterns. I know it is just paraffin oil, naphtha-kerosene, alkylated phenols, some dinonylnaphthylsulfonic acid, corrosion inhibitors, icing Inhibitors, Biocides, and water vapor, but still, all that crap floating down in the air is strangely disturbing.
Unless you don't give a crap what is in the air you breathe ...
Yes, it certainly is weird. It's almost as though they were flying along the same line from one navigational beacon to another and wind is drifting the contrails left behind.
But us really smart guys know that couldn't be the case, because the wind would have to be at an angle to the contrails... and what are the odds of that?
Us really smart guys also know that the airlines are rolling in cash, and just pump the damn fuel overboard without burning it. Because burning it efficiently might turn it all into water and carbon dioxide, and what would be the fun in that?
