01.06.2010, 17:43
aviatorsneah Wrote:imho, birds of prey is not a realistic way to gauge how wing tip vortices look.
in real life when you do see vortices coming off a wingtip (which is rare...and usually only in humid conditions) they are pencil thin and without any real definition. they shouldn't look like puffy smoke systems attached to the wingtips at all. a thinner cross between the stock effect and your lighter version would look really nice.
wingtip contrails are not a rare occurrence at all, and don't appear only in humid conditions, nor they are pencil thin..
The principal reason is the difference of pressure between the wing's top and bottom surfaces, whose airflows meet at the wingtip and generate a low pressure/low temperature area and an air vortex. If the vortex's temperature is close to or below the local dew point, you'll have condensation and you'll be able to see (they're there anyway) these tubular vortexes generating from wingtips or any other aerodynamic leading edge (i.e. propeller wingtips).
It's a common mistake to link humidity to contrails, but u can have contrails in a desert if u have the right conditions.
I agree about the fact that they shouldn't appear as puffy clouds though (even if they look more "cloudy" and turbulent at low speeds and from laminar leading edges), I think it's really hard to recreate them in 3d, and probably the stock effect is better, it should only be slightly longer and have a better fading effect.
A.