Facts Please
Hi All
To answer a few of the points what I had hoped for were multiple flights across Europe to substantiate the predictions from the met office and others with hard data.
That frankly is the least that passengers and the airlines had a right to expect from governments who banned flying and shut down airspace.
Nice to hear that the RJ is well equipped but where was it today? How many flying hours? Where did it go? Who else is flying and gathering data?
As it happens, I flew to Belfast and back this afternoon and like last week saw blue skies and nice fluffy fair weather Cu.
Why I am sceptical of the met office and other academic predictions?
Well the met office bar b q summer predictions did not help and neither did the academic cover ups re global warming.
But what makes me most sceptical is personal experience. When flying the GR1 over Iraq c 1993/4 the vis around Dharan was poor and full of desert blown dust.
The RB199 engines were lasting about 300 hrs because of combat take offs and dust. But had we operated the aircraft back in Germany and made daily take offs at combat power we would have worn the engines pretty quickly anyway.
More recently I have spent over a year operating the Airbus to and from Morocco, typically Tangiers, Casa and Marakesh. The vis in the summer is often quite poor and the air contains desert blown sand and dust.
The "Bus" and the CFM engine seemed to have coped.
So is desert blown sand and dust that different from volcanic ash?
Maybe, but at the high temps found in the back end of a gas turbine both form a glassy material that blocks cooling ducts in blades. Not convinced its ok to fly in desert dust and a few km vis but not ok to enter dilute levels of volcanic that are not visible to pilots.
I remain sceptical of todays airspace closures and believe that we are being sold an over reaction from governments and regulators that may well ruin airlines and jobs.
Will HMG bail out UK airlines like it did the banks?