Yes that's how it works.

The thing that needs explaining are those long lasting vortex ribbons

my theory for that is that is it essentially the same effect. As the plane flys through the air it creates these two giant vortices in the air along-side it. the ribbon bit we can see is the low pressure centre of a vortex. The effect lasts a while because the vortices are really big* and powerful and it will take a while for the air in them to stop swirling.

*In this video when the plane goes through clouds. like in preloader, the vortices are huuuge, like way bigger than these massive passegner planes.

they're chemtrails, DUH

your theory is wrong, the large vortices are generated above the wingtips, you can see it at the start of the video.

Well my theory is that the *centre* of a vortex is positioned at the wingtip, but the whole vortex itself is being created by the entire wing and plane body. We could just go look this up.. In fact I will.

http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/vortices/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_vortices
http://weatherfaqs.org.uk/book/export/html/23

yeah I know how they're formed from wingtips, but that's not what I was talking about.


From looking around it looks like flaps generate a much greater pressure difference because of their angle and that creates a tighter vortex than the wingtips.