We’re all familiar with the clouds that follow behind airplanes when warm jet exhaust meets the cold upper atmosphere, but if you’re lucky enough to find yourself near an airport on a humid day, you can experience a cloudy, visual treat that never fails to dazzle.

We've all moaned and groaned over flights cancelled due to weather. It's maddening to miss your connection (or even your whole trip) because of bad weather, but incidents like today's crash of Delta 1086 in a snowy New York City are exactly why they make that tough call that can affect millions of travelers.

If you're one of the tens of thousands of people who are trapped in one of the United States' many fine airports on this Thanksgiving Eve, you may find yourself wondering when the hell you're going to get out of here and on to your destination. Here's a quick forecast for your (eventual) departure.

In the past few weeks we've seen an endless stream of opinions come out about reclining seats and boarding order and carry-on luggage and this and that, but nobody discusses one of the biggest issues behind flying: the wonder wore off. At what point did we stop appreciating that we're able to fly?

Jaden Smith just Tweeted a link to a YouTube video of an airplane producing condensation trails. There is no context; his last Tweet was more than a week ago. It's just a link to the video. Is this the Illuminati proving that chemtrails exist? Let's wildly speculate.

The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of people who point lasers at aircraft. Avid readers of The Vane will remember that this is a favorite tactic of certain paranoid conspiracy theorists.

Daybreak on Monday brought a surprising story of survival with news that a teenage stowaway miraculously survived in the wheel well of an airplane after a six hour flight from San Jose, California to Maui, Hawaii this weekend. The story is notable because the vast majority of airplane stowaways die long before the aircraft reaches its final destination.

Frequent fliers know the routine: seat up, bags stowed, phones in airplane mode, keep your seat belts fastened at all times as we can never predict rough air. When flight attendants go over their safety speech at the beginning of a flight, they're not doing it because they have to. The information is presented to help keep you safe. Rough air — polite airline-speak for turbulence — really can be unpredictable and dangerous if you're not strapped in when it happens.