Hey gang,I just flew a Western Airlines DC-6 by Tom Gibson from Seattle to San Fran. When I downloaded the plane, I also downloaded the FS2k2 update, which, among other things, gives you control over contrails via the smoke system (which looks very nice, by the way).Out of curiosity, when did the contrails on propliners start to appear? Obviously not at the 30,000 feet of the jets. I didn't even know contrails were that regular with the propliners...I always thought they appeared a good deal higher than the props flew.Thanks in advance,Matt

I could be totally off the mark here Matt, but I think the altitude has very little to do with it as much as the air temperature, of course, the higher you are, the colder the air, the moisture in the exhaust gasses becoming crystalline and hence reflecting the light.Am I wrong here? Anybody?I remember just before moving back here, going up to 15,000 ASL in an open cockpit aircraft. I had a winter jumpsuit on, moon boots, and gloves, but I was still shivering! This was in July in California.How many old film strips have you seen of WWII bombers leaving contrails across the sky? The crew hated them too because it pointed the germans right to them. Cheers!HeatherGotta go! Need 3.1 more hours of flight time before the close of tomorrow to get my "Captain" rating.

Hi Matt,I have definitely seen photos of proliners trailing contrails, but I don't know how often it happened. I also assume that you would have to be pretty high (over 17-20,000 ft?) for them to be common at all.Hope this helps,-- Tom GibsonCalifornia Classic Propliners: http://www.calclassic.com/Cal Classic Alco Page: http://www.calclassic.com/alco/Freeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.com/ San Diego Model RR Museum: http://www.sdmodelrailroadm.com/Drop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

I was watching a show the other night about the development of the 707. It was still in development, so unless a SR71 was flying high above, it had to have been a prop liner leaving the contrails I saw in the clip. That is unless I need to brush up on my jetliner history, cause wasn't the 707 the first civilian jetliner?