A couple of observations, since there are no aeroplanes worth talking about. What, please, is a BOROSCOPE which many of you seem to be using? I am an engineer - not an aero one, but a horny handed son of toil nevertheless - and I have seen and know about BORESCOPES.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfRTqD6Jc8Y
People like me put borescopes into complex kit like engines, to examine them without the time and cost of tearing them apart. As an aside, doctors put them up your bottom to see how
your machinery is working too!
On the thread subject itself, I think Orionsbelt made a cogent observation - no pun intended - when he said:
1 Has any research aircraft / UAV flown and measured the concentration of dust in the different areas around the volcano. I fail to understand how an area from 85 east to 55 west and 70 north to 40 south can all have dangerous concentrations of dust. As an astronomer last night the sky at my home in Essex was the clearest I've seen it in months.
The bit about astronomy is probably more telling than many people realise. Furthermore, far from knowinjg what the maximum
safe (Define safe in these circumstances?) concentration of ash is, do we actually know what the
ambient concentration of ash over the affected area was? It seems to me Icelandic volcanos have been errupting for ever, but this is the first time such a dramatic reaction has been taken.
Italy have a couple of quite notorious volcanos that haven't stopped errupting in my lifetime. What is the ambient ash concentration and its altitude profile of Italian airspace and what, if anything, is the effect on aeroplanes the fly regularly in that region? As has also been said, there has
never been a time when the background airborne ash concentration has been zero. The
must be ash contamination in varying concentrations all over the world.
The ash from Mount St. Helens circulated round the entire globe, to my certain knowledge, thus dispersing collosal quantities of ash into
our or the currently effected airspace. What was the procedure and affect then? What were the long terrm engine maintenance effects of Mount St. Helens?
One flight of the Dornier - albeit scientifically equipped - and one flight of the KLM 738, does not a research programme make. I have absolutely no idea of how much European Airlines are collectively losing per minute, but I bet they could afford to sacrifice more than one airframes worth of engines to do some much more intensive research.
And please don't trot out BA009 and the others. Orionsbelt has shown that there simply isn't enough up there to make aeroplanes plunge out of the sky. Wreck their engines by any engineering standards for sure, but not enough to make them quit 'on the job'. For that you need Canada Geese.
But if, as is suggested, this goes on for very much longer, serious and quite expensive research needs to be done. Especially as, we are constantly reminded, that the much more volatile
Katla might be nudged into action by the current one.
Roger.