windytoo, you're spot on. This is just hypothetical argument. I'm certainly one of the few who seem to have a problem with what happened, so I accept I may well be a protaganist. Unfortunately we keep bouncing back and forth about what the risk is or isn't. Yet, I maintain my probelm is not so much with whatever apparent risk may have been out there but with the manner in which it was handled and ultimately decicded to not exist.
I just get tired of people telling me no aircraft have crashed from ash in the past as if that means there is no risk. Then when the same people admit that ash does carry risk, they then say as long as you not within a few hundred miles of the eruption you're OK. Get your hands on one of the early satellite images from last Thursday and tell me you would have been happy flying over Scotland or Scandinavia. Yet we should be fine since we're so far away. And on and on the argument goes.
Cars and road deaths compared to ash encounters is just pathetic IMHO. If you are a pilot then you train twice a year for an engine failure at V1, brief for it every single day and plan for it on every single departure at HUGE COST to the industry in lost payload and excess engine wear. Yet how many engine failures at V1 have occured over the last 50 years. The one in MAN recently was the latest I know of and maybe a handful before that. That makes it much less likely than a car crash, so why bother worrying about it by your logic. Apples and Oranges mate.
I'm just frustrated that we seem to be happy with a completely rushed assessment of the danger which flies in the face of previous thinking without proper analysis, for a problem that would go away, at least for the short term, within a matter of days.
Talk all you like about risk only being in the immediate vicinity of an eruption. Research aircraft found visible and significant layers of ash in UK airspace. One of these aircraft was grounded to due the risk of possible damage sustained. Military jets suffered damage in various areas and were grounded. Civilian airliners have had suspected damage. Why oh why is that so easy to ignore? I suppose all involved were just drinking heavily the night before and don't really know what they're talking about. All the talk about visible ash being the only issue is all rubbish also. How many ash clouds have you seen from the air? How can you all be so sure you'd be able to recognise it? It's not some black gritty looking cloud for Christ's sake. What about embedded ash? On and on it goes. I tell ya my head is sore from banging it off this wall.
Pace, check the latest London VAAC charts.
But, as I said you're right, this is a circular argument and maybe I'm just missing the point entirely. Maybe ini years to come I'll look back and say what a **** I was to have been so worried. Let's hope that's the case. So I at least will leave it there. Safe flying everyone.