Up in the Air!

Can you help identify the source

of these aerial trails?

This was a mystery for me from the beginning when I took my photo's on March 19, but I put it on the "backburner", so to speak, until I saw Glenn Miller's weather photo on the Channel 10 6 o'clock News on March 27th, of the "curious cloud formation off Lonsdale".

Here's what I captured on March 19...

To get better images I abandoned my iPhone and grabbed my Kodak

which afforded a closer look....

 Circular contrail to NNE (030) of observer's MARDEN location. First observed 5 mins earlier. Note 4 distinct circular trails and two trails from the East feeding into the loops. Lower small loop "active" with craft visible in the inner portion. Note commercial aircraft (circled) heading towards trails, after earlier taking off from Adelaide Airport, behind me.

Mar 19, 2013 1:00:12pm

Aircraft now turning to the North Mar 19, 2013 1:00:31pm

Commercial airliner visible turning to the North on climb in front of the contrail array

(just below centre right of image) Mar 19, 2013 1:00:41pm

Commercial aircraft taken off from Adelaide Airport turns in front of trails and climbs to the North
Mar 19, 2013 1:00:52pm

Commercial aircraft taken off from Adelaide Airport has turned in front of trails,

and continues climbing to the North Mar 19, 2013 1:01:03pm

This is actually a "contrail" created by a circling aircraft (that I was able to observe during this sequence) which, in this case I estimated, to be over the vicinity of the Barossa or Light  regions, based on my location and the bearing of the "cloud".

At first I suspected an emergency situation where the plane would circle to consume (or even dump) fuel prior to an emergency landing. But the "rotational" speed of the observed aircraft creating the trail suggested it was not a large passenger "liner", but rather a smaller "private" aircraft able to perform such "tighter" circles.

This consideration then led to the possibility of "cloud seeding"operations, but a "Google" search failed to identify any operators or activities of this sort. A final possibility was hinted at by one of my friends who quipped it might be aerial "signwriting", and it seems the only reasonable conclusion, despite the patterns (four circles?) not really identifying with any product or service logos......mystery.
The tracking of the other commercial airliner flying in front of the trails gives some idea of the scale of the trail circles which are far in the distance......