Flying Spaghetti Monster Attacks C-17
 

That's great!!

I love that photo! New windows desktop. The wingtip vortices are clearly visibl. . .

Never mind, it's "His Noodly Appendage". :)

Freaky man.:)

Can someone explain how that was formed?

Did he fly through a smoke explosion or what?

My car backfired. :D

It's a new thing called "photoshop". :D

Looks like wingtip vortices in the smoke trailers from anti-missile flares.

Looks like it to me too...
Thought you guys would appreciate it!

chafe chaff chaffe however you want to spell it. used to counter threat ground to air missiles upon landings and takeoffs.

***CAUTION...wake turbulence***

They're called Angel flares. It is the anti-missile system on the aircraft. Here is a video from youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfO3tBjZHZk

specifically, burning magnesium.

Awesome.

Not Photoshop. It's a real demonstration of what a wing does to the air it passes through. Those two little tornados you see are called wake vorticies.

An airplane flies because the wing produces lift. A wing will develop a relative low pressure area above itself and a relative high pressure area just below itself. That high pressure area will want to flow outward from the wing root area to the wing tip area - it's called spanwise flow. The high pressure air that has reached the wingtip will then flow around the wingtip and up toward the low pressure area above the wing, which will impart a very high speed core of rotation to the air around the wingtip. Obviously the aircraft is moving and continuously producing this high pressure to low pressure flow around the wingtip so this produces a mini horizontal tornado of sorts which trails behind each wingtip. The vorticies each turn in opposite directions and can last as long as two minutes. The vorticies will also sink at a rate of about 300 to 500 feet per minute before they dissipate. If the air is moist or the plane is flying through smoke, then the vorticies can be seen graphically.

I'll attach a great pic in a minute

These vortices also create drag, so that's why you're seeing those "upturned" winglets on the ends of the wings these days (and are visible on the C-17) - they reduce the drag created by these vortices, right?

Mike

Looks like one of those pics the shrink would have you interpret.

Lets see... two arms, two legs, a nice set of hooters and what distinctly looks like a camel toe.

Is that really allowed in the US ??

450 knot office..............not chaff???? saw pics of very similar tentacles coming off cargo plane landing in bagdad on my buddies web site. we used to take mag shavings (chips) from garrett and have all sorts of big grin fun lighting that stuff up in the dez at night! still have some in my baja survival kit for fire starting! outstanding for starting fires in the rain hunting camping !

Yes, vortices create huge drag, especially at high angles of attack with the wing clean, meaning flaps and slats retracted (basically slow indicated airspeed and/or high altitude). The winglets help to cancel out a bit of the vortex and also, if designed well, can use some of the energy imparted by the vortex to create a very slight forward thrust vector.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1156270776.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1156270794.jpg

Charles, the smoke from the flares is what allowed us to see the wing's work in action (at least the spiral effect).

(edited for misuse of terms)

You pilots should really know better.
IT'S NOT CHAFF !!!

Chaff, also called "window" by silly foreigners, is NOT the same thing as FLARE.

Chaff is an RADAR countermeasure.
Flare is a heat-seek (IR) countermeasure.

Yeah, it isn't chaff. Chaff is usually small rectangles of an aluminum foil type stuff which reflects the radar and scatters the radar signal of the plane being locked on to. These are flares, used against heat seeking missiles...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1156275704.jpg

Flares are meant to distract heats seeking and IR missiles with a very bright heat signature...hopefully brighter than my aircrafts!

Chaff is meant to confuse radar guided missiles with small metalic particules (in different lenghts to confuse different type of missiles).

The key is that we usually "pop" a series of chaff and flares when a missile is detected...best not to guess.

I flew with a guy who had a completely different policy. On our first flight, he pointed to the missile warning system and says, "If you EVER see that mutha&%^&er light up, I'll be waiting for you on the ground."

The jet guys I've flown with have a saying: "You don't have to be faster than the missile, just faster than your wingman...";)

Funny story:

A friend of mine was deployed to Baghdad about 6 months ago. Part of her job involved flying around the country in Blackhawks to do clinic and hospital inspections. Anyhow, on her first ride they are flying over Baghdad and she sees flares start popping off. She about craps her pants, sure they are getting shot at but the crew doesn't seem concerned. Not wanting to seem like a wuss, she keeps her mouth shut. After they land, she asks one of the crew why the flares were popping off. He said it is an automated system but it often gets triggered by automatic garage doors, automatic sliding doors, etc.

so what your saying is the missile warning system lights up and you have to" manually light" off chaffe and flares??????

its not automatically activated once missile is detected?????
it seemed from bagdad final approach pictures there was no threat but they did it anyway to discourage shoulder fired weapons.

Depends on the system...and the mission and the time of day. The systems I have flown allow different settings that either trigger chaff and flares automtically or allow pilot interface prior to deployment of countermeasures.

The last thing you want at night on certain mission profiles (or subsets of) is a stray tron giving the bad guys a "flamming datum".

Sometimes on very humid days, just before a high wing loading aircraft; such as an airliner, lands you can see the vortices off the wing tips and back edges of the flaps make little condensation trails that look like that. Some fighters do it too in High-G manuevers.

Flares...Chaff. Oops. Sorry.

(I never flew in the military so I know nothing about countermeasures)

I think on our bird, we were just supposed to start flicking a bunch of "strike anywhere" matches out the window if the warning light came on.