* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
I have captured for La Vanguardia Readers' Photos this image of these spectacular trails, in the shape of streamers, generated by the plane flying over Gavà, in Baix Llobregat.
Spotting is the observation and recording of aircraft. It is a practice so popular among photography lovers that we are called spotters. And, Gavà, due to its proximity to the Prat airport, is a good place to observe and photograph aircraft, especially from the beach.
Airplanes form a vapor trail after the kerosene combustion process. The gases expelled by the engine come out at a much higher temperature than the outside temperature.
The sharp contrast in temperatures at a height greater than 30,000 feet (-50 degrees in the atmosphere) causes the immediate condensation of the water present in this mixture of substances. This causes us to see these kinds of elongated ice clouds that dissipate after a few seconds.
A curiosity is that there are airplanes that form contrails while other nearby airplanes do not. Airplanes fly at different altitudes, therefore, the temperature and humidity conditions encountered by one airplane are different from those encountered by another airplane flying close to the first, but at a different altitude.
This phenomenon is known in the English-speaking and aeronautical world as contrail - a word that comes from the fusion of the words condensation (trail) or in Spanish, condensation trail.
