Warbird Information Exchange

Went out to go to dinner, and, as usual, do some airplane spotting/photography (my school's campus is in between Lunken and Cincy/Northern KY airports, so there's almost always at least something. Soon as I came out the door, I saw this bird overhead, trailing smoke. It should be visible in the photo:



Should I have called emergency services about this? I was considering doing so, but I wasn't sure what I would have reported. I checked the FAA's incident DB a bit ago and didn't see anything for my location or for any Gulfstreams. Moreover, can anyone guess what went on here?

edit: I forgot to mention, for this being the case, it didn't seem to be in particular trouble, as it kept on climbing and headed on northwest-ish (my sense of direction is kinda poor, though.)

Looks like an exhaust plume to me

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real airplanes have round engines

There is NOTHING wrong with that plane. Some days the exhaust shows up more than others - just like at some altitudes you'll see contrails and not at others.

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Just running a little dirty at lower speeds and altitudes. Under the right combination of speed, altitude, thrust setting and numerous other factors, any turbine based engine will smoke some. Watch some of the old movies or Utube clips that show F-4's, B-52 ect taking off. You will see the same thing, but much more pronounced.

I only get concerned when I see extremely dense, oily black smoke, or visable flames out either end when he's not an afterburner equipped a/c.

:facepalm: I should have figured as much. Thanks for setting me straight.

You should have seen some of the old DC-8's that I used to fuel. A few of those would leave a black cloud that even a F-4 or B-52 would be proud of.

looks like hes burning plenty of Jet-A on a climb out...

i went flying early this morning, all i could smell as i walked up the road to the flying school was burnt Jet-A.. nice

Looks like a Bombastic Regional Jet.

You are so right on old first gen jets, Alaska used to operate a CONVAIR 880 in the mid 60's that had the nickname in Anchorage of 'Old Smoky' because you could see the very large, very black cloud of exhaust with a small white dot in the middle about 15 minutes before the aircraft got close enough to be visually identified.

707's with JT3's and water are pretty close to a forest fire for smoke, and an un modded KC-135 with J-57's and water can make the city behind them disappear in black smoke and ear piercing noise as they take what seems like 15 minutes to get gathered up and trundle gathering speed at a majestic rate down the runway. If you can find a color picture of ship #1 DC-8 leaving the ground @ Santa Monica on it's first flight you'll understand why CARB was established in Ahhnoldland.
The bucket style TR's on DC-8's with JT-4's (after the original window shade reverser panels didn't work) would get so crudded up with oily sooty smoke that you'd need to use a wheel chock to pound them to make them stow so the 'reverser unstowed' lights would go out. You couldn't get the soot out of your clothes, and you couldn't get away from it if you were working anywhere inside the wingspan of the things.

And you kids think you've got it tough these days!!

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

A couple of years ago I saw what I think was probably an Illinois ANG KC-135E (I believe they now have R's) heading north out of Scott AFB. Conspicuously smoky compared with contemporary airliners, though it was late in the afternoon and I was to the east of the plane.

That 135 may have been equipped with the first re-engine mod for the airframe. The Air Force went to the boneyards and salvaged the JT-3's equipped with 'high bypass fans' (in the high teens in percentage of air bypassed) from to be scrapped retired commercial 707-320's. pretty good increase in thrust and really cheap, but still big smoke! Not necesarily a fun engine to trim, you stand right next to the fan outlet gills with the longest straight screwdriver you posess, on a really hot day when you can use it most, you'll hit the mouse first try and the trim is done. On a bitter, freezing, nasty run (usually @ night to add to the fun) you'll chase that friggin' mouse for over and hour to get the engine trimmed and even with good hearing protection, your hearing is hosed for the next day and a half from the noise.

I was an Inspector @ Boeing in Renton and worked the last 707 built. Before it went it's customer, Ghana Air I think, we installed pylons and SNECMA CFM 56's in an attempt to see if the old girl could be reinvigorated like the stretch 8's had been and get more life out of the airframe. After a flight test program the JT-3's and original pylons were installed and the old lady went to it's customer. The outgrowth of the flight testing obviously became the 135R.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-