celandic volcano eruption
10 miles West of LHR.
17th April 2010
Went outside this evening at at maybe 1915 and 2115 you could smell the ash at ground level.
In between and after that, no smell.
Clear sky, no funny sunset, and no effects on the visibility of the setting Moon.
But definately a smell of ash on two occasions this evening.
Second occasion, after sunset, was much stronger.
Probably a 'dump' of colder air as the thermals switched off.
Which makes me wonder - does the lower level ash fall out of the sky after sunset?
Thinks... no thermals to keep it up, condensation of water due to much lower temperature = fallout.
"but we had an ash cloud yesterday, and it lasted overnight"
Yes, but was it held up by an inversion layer?
Can we work around the ash cloud problem by only flying at night?
Question - would it be much safer to only fly at night?
I think it's time to send a test plane up overnight to test the theory.
At present we're pretty ignorant about the situation.
Let's learn.