Wikivoyage:Tourist office

Welcome to the tourist office The Wikivoyage tourist office is a place where you can ask travel-related questions about any place in the world. Wikivoyage volunteers will do their best to find the relevant information (or just reply off the top of their expert heads) and reply to you. Before you ask your question here, be sure to search our travel guide for the destination or topic you're considering. Many questions are already answered within our guides! In addition, some of our destinations have docents who have volunteered to answer questions about specific places. If neither of those avenues bear fruit, then please ask away! This page is for travel-related questions only. Information on how to contribute to Wikivoyage is at Help:Contents, while questions about Wikivoyage itself may be posed at the Pub. Queries regarding general information on non-travel topics may be made at Wikipedia's Reference desk; some topics tangentially related to travel include: the Humanities desk, which deals with geopolitics, culture, and human geography the Science desk, which deals with natural processes, physical geography, and engineering (vehicles, transportation design, etc.) Please note that we can not guarantee a response and can not be held liable for incorrect or outdated information. Answered questions will be moved to the Archives after two weeks of inactivity. Want a faster answer? How can I get my question answered? Explain clearly what you want to know. Provide a short heading that gives the general topic of the question. Tell us what part of the world your question applies to. Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. We'll answer here within a few days. Don't post questions that common sense or a search engine can answer in a couple of seconds. Disclaimer This is a travel guide that anyone can edit and that relies entirely on volunteer contributions. We do our best, but nothing on this page or elsewhere on the site can be guaranteed to be up-to-date or entirely accurate. In particular, check with other sources for questions that can have serious consequences: With your doctor for health issues With your own government, or another, for travel advisories that may help you avoid dangerous areas With the government of the destination country for visas and travel restrictions With a lawyer for other legal issues Nothing on this site should be taken as medical or legal advice.

Aeroplane Smoke

Why aeroplanes release smoke while flying? Asked by: 79.144.165.198 21:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not smoke; it's a condensation trail. See w:contrail. LtPowers (talk) 23:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I have always also wondered while looking up at the sky why airplanes leave that long white trail. Sometimes the trail is a thin white stripe that disappears quickly while other times the trail is thick and remains in the sky for a long time after the plane is gone. The answer to this question is actually very simple. The plane is not exactly releasing smoke…the white trail is actually a condensation trail or contrail for short.

According to Wonderopolis, “Airplane engines produce exhaust, just like car engines do. As hot exhaust gases escape from a plane, the water vapor in the fumes hits the air” (Wonderopolis). As one can imagine the air at that height is very cold. When the fumes hit the cold air the water vapor condenses. Thus, condensation is created in the sky. This condensation creates the white trail in the sky that we see. Jenn Rossmann an assistant professor of engineering at Harvey Mudd College, provides this explanation… “Depending on a plane’s altitude, and the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere, contrails may vary in their thickness, extent and duration” (Scientific American). This explains why sometimes the trails disappear at different rates and also vary in thickness. Many planes fly at different altitudes and during different weather conditions, so of course there are going to be many different types of condensation trails.

To me, I think of this small condensation trail almost as a “mini” cloud. With this being said on the website titled Contrail Science it states “Contrails are actually a type of cirrus cloud” (Contrail Science). Because these trails are similar to clouds they too can easily evaporate. The rate at which they evaporate is the rate at which they “disappear” to us. In contrast, many people have seen the planes that actually spell out words in the sky. This is something completely different than a condensation trail. “Skywriters” are the certain types of planes that spell out words in the sky. These airplanes are “equipped with special smoke machines to fly in special patterns to create written messages visible from the ground” (Wonderopolis).

In conclusion, next time you look up at the sky and see the white smoke that is left behind from a flying airplane you will know that it is simply a condensation trail. Maybe ask yourself, what kind of trail is being left behind…Is it a thin trail that remains in the sky for short periods of time? Or is it a thicker tail that disappears very slowly? After answering these questions, simply observe how high the plane is in the sky and what the weather conditions are. Personally, I love watching airplanes fly by. Knowing exactly what the white trail they leave behind is, makes watching them that much more interesting.

References

Rossmann, Jenn. "Why Do Jets Leave a White Trail in the Sky?: Scientific American." Scientific American, 19 Nov. 2001. Web. 17 Sept. 2013. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-do-jets-leave-a-white>.

"Why Do Some Planes Leave Long Trails, but Others Don’t?" The Science and Pseudoscience of Contrails and Chemtrails. Contrail Science, 5 Mar. 2010. Web. 17 Sept. 2013. <http://contrailscience.com/why-do-some-planes-leave-long-trails-but-others-dont/>.

"Why Do Airplanes Leave Tracks In the Sky? | Wonderopolis." Wonderopolis. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2013. <http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-airplanes-leave-tracks-in-the-sky/>.

H.palmer13 (talk) 20:44, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

relocate

Asked by: 67.142.183.20 19:26, 10 September 2013 (UTC)could you please send me a travelers guide? My name is Lisa Brewster and my address is [deleted].

Answer: Just print out any pages you want. And it's probably best not to post your name and address publicly where spammers and scammers can scan it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:29, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

query

which coast is southampton england Asked by: Howsey (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi! Southampton is on the south coast of England, in Hampshire. Hope this helps! --Nick ^talk 19:15, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Although actually it is on the Southampton Water estuary which runs into The Solent around the Isle of Wight, which then goes into the English Channel. It was developed as an important harbour because it is well protected from the sea storms. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Cemetery in New Castle West

location of catholic cemetery in town of New Castle West in County Lomerick, Ireland Asked by: 74.76.127.240 18:27, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Churchtown Road, Newcastle West. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:58, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Ugandan embassy in Khartoum

I want to know the telephone number of Ugandan embassy in Khartoum. I have searched it in Google. However, the number I got is not working. Asked by: 41.209.112.31 18:43, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

This site lists three; have you tried all three numbers? I would consider that it's possible the embassy has closed; I found a web site address that no longer functions, and Google Maps also doesn't acknowledge its existence. LtPowers (talk) 19:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Passports and crayons

So I was considering visiting Molossia, which requires citizens of the U.S. to produce their passport, and wondered whether they (he) would stamp my passport, and what that would mean. Does anyone know what happens if you put random stamps in your passport? Or forge an actual country's stamps? Or just create a drawing with crayons on one page? I'm curious about the laws, and not just U.S. law.

Asked by: Peter ^Talk 05:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)