aeronautic

In the sun

The docs' fighter streaming chaff at 250 m/s on a clear day, the trail glittering and flashing at the sun's reflection.

chaff-in-the-sun.tsx
Starting…

The fighter flies at 250 m/s, three kilometres up on a clear day. Hold the button and the dispensers take turns, a cartridge every twentieth of a second (a fast program, an estimate): a cloud every 12.5 m, about its own length, so the trail streams out behind it. Nothing about its light is drawn to taste: the sun's illuminance through the air (Meinel and Meinel's fit, Kasten and Young's air mass), a clear sky's 6000 cd/m², the ground's fifth of what falls on it, and the aluminium's 0.91.

  • Each cloud is 11 m long at 244 m/s, stretched by the airspeed as it blooms, and 1.75 m across. Slow down and they shorten; hover and they hang under the tail.
  • The sun sets how it shines. Level fibres are mirrors facing up: from where the sun's reflection would be, the cloud flashes about eighteen times brighter than turned every way, within a few degrees. The sun starts behind the trail as high as the first view sees it, so the trail shines white.
  • Move the sun and the flash leaves: away from the reflection the same cloud is only grey against the sky. Its fibres hide about a fifth of what is behind it, as thin as real chaff.
  • Above, behind the trail, put the sun ahead of the nose, about 25° up, and the trail flashes towards you.
  • Chasing, the clouds go past the camera in a tenth of a second: at 250 m/s the trail is left behind fast.
  • Where it is thin it glitters: each pixel draws its own count of glinting fibres, and the count changes as the view turns.
  • It sinks at the readout's speed and stays where it was let go: the fighter is the one that leaves.