ShaneG wrote on Dec 26^th, 2008 at 9:23am:




Nice finds there

But there is no dust from them either is the point. And the airbus didn't even rock the small planes as it blasted by.

The airbus one is most certainly real....It was in most of the national papers....

To be fair the KC135 is in a desert, so some dust would be expected......the real question is who really cares??

.mic

I think that the KC135 would kick up dust because it's in a desert where all the little particulates would be settled, just waiting for something to come and blow them around.  Likewise the TAP one wouldn't because it's at an airport where this sort of thing is allways going on, so the sand or whatever, probally would have blown away oir is too small for the camera to pick-up from all the constant use it has gone through.  As for why the plane did not rock.. The plane was simply too far away for it to feel its effects.  The same reason why people don't blow into the ocean when planes take off there.

Hey, someones gotta be on the real side. I like pulling for the underdog.

I'm definitely calling this one real.

Just because you don't see the dust coming up doesn't mean it's not there, and here are my reasons.

1.  In that situation, I would imagine the pilot would be coming out of a dive in the last few seconds (unless he flew all the way across the desert NOE), and he probably kept the speed back a bit just because you don't want to be screaming across the desert floor as fast as you can and have to make a high-G pull-up in a KC-135 if you see something coming.  For these two reasons, I would imagine he would have the engines throttled back probably close to idle.  At idle, the engines would kick up dust, but not nearly as much as at higher power settings.  Also, the exhaust plume wouldn't be large enough to reach the ground for some time if it ever did, since it's probably much hotter than the surrounding air, it will rise before it can ever hit the ground to create a dust cloud.  Engines at idle also solves the sound problem somewhat.

2.  As far as dust from the wingtip vorticies, they usually take a rather long time to descend, which is why you might sometimes get a "caution, wake turbulence" on your landing clearance, even minutes after the aircraft in-front of you has landed.

3.  This isn't the USAF, this is the French, and we all know they're friggin crazy anyway.

My 2 cents.

Here, Shane, I found the one from the other side:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK4cdHDHhLY&feature=related

Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vJliayH6co&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWtdtuspnoM&feature=related

Real of course, but still cool.