If I thought that what we had just done was exactly that - carefully worked out the real risk and the likely result of an increase in exposure both in the shorter and longer term, then I feel none of us could really take issue with it. That is just what has happened with so many other threats. But the difference here is through a misjudgement by the industry we never bothered to look into it in any great detail. Suddenly we were caught out and the pressure was on for a quick decision.
My only question to you would be how can you be happy with the way the new procedures were created? 2 days is an absolutely incredibly short time for so many sections of the industry to come up with an answer. And in particular how can you be happy with it in the light of the fact that test flights, military flights and civilian flights, have appeared to have continued to suffer problems that the new regulations said would not occur?
Genuinely, I would like to know what you think. Maybe you have some other nugget that might make me see this whole thing differently....
CaptainPaddy
On this part I cannot disagree with you. In areas of known ash I would limit operations to daylight only where pilots will have a better chance of seeing denser areas of ash and avoid.
My instincts (and that is all they are) is that if you can see it the ash clouds, mist etc MAY do harm. If you cannot see the ash clouds mist in daylight VMC in all probability there will be no harm.
It is important to differentiate between two types of harm. Harm that could down an aircraft and cause loss of life and harm that would shorten engine life.
The very diffused ash in all probability MAY shorten engine life but that becomes the bill payers problem.
I totally agree that it is more than likely that the new limits were picked out of a hat but apart from having a long and detailed analysis the new limits are a starting point.
Even with a long detailed analysis and testing we never really know what is what until tested in the field. I know car manufacturers can drive thousands of miles in testing conditions and only discover problems when the cars are on the road in daily use.
There are threats in the air that we live with and accept every day which have and do bring down aircraft. To date even dense ash has not killed anyone (unless your a smoker
Is the ash threat bigger or mainly a media driven hype?
NO!!! in low density ash its more likely to cost in the pocket rather than lives.
I am afraid till something happens to prove otherwise.
Pace