Contrails and the Pointless Flight

Here in the Boles Blogs Network we have been concerned with the idea of visible chemical residue left by airplane contrails for awhile, and while the whole thing sometimes makes me just want to put on a tin foil hat and try to block out the world for awhile, I cannot help but snap to attention when I see that other people around the country occasionally notice the curious contrails as well.

Residents of Marana, Arizona, were startled to see a cargo plane flying around and around, leaving what appeared to be chemical contrails everywhere it went. The plane did not seem to be going anywhere and the entirety of the flight was about an hour. Normally, cargo planes transport goods from one place to another but this one did not do anything other than to frighten people who saw it.

According to the officials at the airport from which the airplane departed and later landed, the answer is less nefarious than people were led to believe. According to the company that owned the plane, it had not been flown in awhile and it needed to be flown on a test flight. I will accept that planes that have not been flown in awhile require test flights prior to being used properly, but why an hour of test flight? I will be the first to admit that I do not know much about airplanes but this seems like quite a lot.

There is the possibility that this is exactly what happened — that the plane had not been flown in awhile and the cargo company wanted to make sure that they had a properly functioning plane. It does seem odd that the company works with the United States military to deliver military cargo, however, and there happened to have been the eery contrails that lead people to wonder what is going on in the world around them.

I would prefer to think that this is not a big deal and that this company is doing exactly what they claim they are doing but it just seems a little bizarre to me. Have you seen any planes suspiciously flying with no rhyme or reason? Were you intimidated by the sight?