Ash clouds threaten air traffic

[falconer1]

let's face it

if there had not been a total flight ban over Europe on that first w-end when the eruption had started in April we definitely would have seen some maybe even serious events on the civil side of aviation..

just want to remind everyone on what had happened to the Finnish F/A-18s..on that first w-end

That is a fact

What happens now, if I look through the new UK CAA procedures with TLZs etc etc , and we are talking of up to 4000 MG / m3, the folks from the engine manufacturers to whom I talked yesterday are just laughing..

Now, as an AOC holder you will have to "build a safety case"...

Just to say, they others also fly will not suffice..

And you as an operator will have to get the nod from the engine folks..

well, they will give you some maintenance and inspection requirements, maybe..( some of those could amount to nothing less, than having to perform a hot-section inspection every couple hundred hours on certain types..( which may make flying cost-wise unfeasible...it will destroy the bizplan of a lot of airlines..)

What I really want to know though, the engine manufacturers definitely will put a legal disclaimer on EVERY PAGE of their enhanced procedures, that in fact they DO NOT RECOMMEND flying in that cra...

So how do you build a safety analysis, if the most important link in the chain , the engine folks, will say, better dont do it..??!!

Dont get me wrong, I do understand that especially the UK is in trouble now, if that mountain continues on and on, depending on weather you in the UK will have high ash concentration days every week or every second week or so..

And I understand that keeping the planes up in the air beats reverting back to sheep farming and whiskey..( now that the EU even wants to "regulate" your hedge funds, and London could lose quite a bit of funky /junky biz)

and then on top your airspace gets dirtied up every 10 days..

I understand..

what I do not understand though is, up to now, we in aviation strived to have the best safety record and try to better it every decade or so..

If that new "let's all fly in the dirt now" should go fundamentally wrong, all the good work of the last decades to make commercial aviation one of the safest form of transportation in history, at least in North America and Europa,( am not talking about Africa, Russia etc etc) but all that could literally go up in smoke overnight...and you wont find any passengers no more even once that mountain will have stopped smoking..

And until now, for testflying you got paid....the traveling public though is paying for their seats in the back and at the end paying the salaries of all those wise-guy pilots here, who think it is a swell idea to suddenly cut back in safety..

think about it..