Dunno if it was posted allready, but the report about the measurement flight done over germany is allready available.

Check http://www.bmvbs.de/Anlage/original_...April-2010.pdf

Blackwall Tunnel Theory.
 

While I have skipped a couple of pages because the thread was getting away from me, I would just like to reiterate my Blackwall Tunnel Theory of Authority Mind Set. Its way back in the low nineties somewhere. I suspect that the UK airspace has not been opened because nobody wants to be the person to say it can.

A couple of observations if I may, or should I say a couple more, because that was the basis of my previous post? The Research equipped Dornier D-CALM flew one research sorte on Friday was it? SInce when very little has been heard. KLM and LH flew 'test flights' local to their operations on Saturday? And both said they had found little.

BA flew a 747 for about 3 hours or a little over, basically from LHR to their deep maintenance centre in Cardiff, in an aeroplane due, presumably, for a fairly long hour overhaul? WW announced that no damage had been found, which, one has to assume, included borescoping one or more of the engines and, since their boss was standing next to them, no shortage of qualified engineers slowed them up? Am I okay so far?

One of WW main planks recently has been a degree of management honesty. Believe me, I hold British Management generically in much the same regard as I view England Football, so WW is very much an exception! If he was found to be trying to 'blag' his way back in to the air, by lying about the state of those engines, he would lose far more than he gained on both of his major problems at the moment.

I was concentrating on driving on a prickly, touchy North Circular Road this evening and I may have misunderstood, but I am sure I gained the very strong impression that whatever the Met office and everybody else is basing UK air space closures on, it is not 'areas of ash have been found'. Because no ash at all has been found because there is no-one up there looking for it?

All of the decisions are based on computer modelling? Is that right, some haunted fish tank is guessing where the ash is and hasn't the first idea how much ash there might be in any given place? Is that right? :ugh:

Finally, in reply to 'Stagger' many pages ago;

I have a very strong recollection that the two donks on the ETOPS qualifying B777 had been selected because they were the highest flying hour engines anywhere at the time. They had the most wear and were both further deliberately unbalanced to emulate poorly maintained, very average engines that might well be found in routine airline service. Is this not so? As an engineer, that's pretty much what I would do, because if the engines passed the ETOPS evaluation, I would get a really nice, warm feeling about those engines.

Roger.

Just as an aside, I'm not sure why the Met Office is taking flack here. Under ICAO/WMO agreements the MO provide VAAC coverage for northwest Europe. Is that not what they've done? Observe, then forecast, the movement of volcanic ash. Isn't that what's happened?

The information they provide is then used by NATS/CAA etc who then decide whether there can be open airspace or not.

The internationally agreed manufacturers' guidance (before this evening's events) was that there is a zero tolerance for aircraft performance in volcanic ash. Therefore, are aircraft manufacturers not to blame for not knowing what their aircraft limitations are? Where does it end?

Unprecedented is surely the word, and instead of looking to blame people, perhaps learning the lessons and keeping them in mind in the event something like this happens again, is the best way ahead.

If a ban hadn't been put in place, and something had have fallen out of the sky, then the same people claiming over-reaction would be asking why airspace wasn't shut. Lose-Lose.


Edit: Landroger, REAL observations of volcanic ash HAVE been made. By the Finnish Airforce, by KLM (near Eindhoven today), by Lufthansa (just south of Hamburg), by Loganair (this very day, at FL170 above Kirkwall), by parachutists (!!!) at FL030 near Peterborough, by the RAF at Coningsby, by an aircraft approaching Newfoundland......I could go on. There have been plenty, PLENTY of reports of ash in the sky.

Landroger
 

If the CAA approves landings it must be with caveats. The London zone is under potential ash cover and will be until at least 21/4 1200.

Now that's something that you'd have never thought would be newsworthy!

Perhaps the C.A.A. has spent the last few days doing what many have called for, finding out exactly what is up there and how dangerous it is? You know, just quietly going about their job.

Some of the diverted flights to BRU and SNN are already back in the air and on their way to LHR too!

Lord Adonis on R4 now [live transcript - all errors mine]- "there is a differentiation between the dangerous area, a no-fly zone, and a low contamination zone where on the advice of manufacturers and test flights where it is safe to fly. The safety regime has been changed to significant analysis of test flight data and experience of flight, and crucially advice from aircraft engine and airframe manufacturers... before last week, volcanoes weren't a problem in Europe. it's because we faced this act of God that we had to face this problem, and intensive work by manufacturers to establish how it is safe to operate."

Interviewer: Were you aware that there were all these planes in the air heading for London?

LA: Of course I knew this evening, because it was all over the media

Interviewer: Didn't BA tell you?

LA: All I needed to do was turn on the television. The process to clear airspace has been in progress since the beginning of the week.

So:

This morning flying is DANGEROUS!, and banned.

Now, flying is safe.

Utter, utter incompetence.

As a result of their engine tests at LCY this morning??? What were they doing I wonder...full thrust into the dock waters while parked in front the A318s...

Air moves around you know...

Hand Solo, can we have the evidence that the information was duff please?

Have you any grasp of what information was provided by the met men and women to the CAA?

Also, can we have some evidence (just as a bonus) of where the Met said airspace should be shut? Perhaps if their ash dispersion model is inaccurate, as aviators we could all cough up some extra tax to pay for a new one?

hand solo
 

i think i saw a senior met man on tv today say they had provided the info NATS' required and that the decision for no-fly 'was outside their (mets) remit'.
i wonder where the dice will roll......

The large bunch of intercontinental flights all now landing at Heathrow launched up to 12 hours ago, which means a decision to launch them in this coordinated fashion must have been taken 18-24 hours ago. It is clear that BA must have decided then that this was all BS and decided to present the UK govt with a fait accompli. At 19-20.00Z tonight they were faced with 20+ BA flights on the doorstep and had to make a rapid decision on what they were going to do.

Big balls for Mr Walsh, that's for sure.

I sympathise with both views. The risk probably is negligible per flight, but it only takes one double engine failure due to a locally dense ash concentration on one of 30,000 daily flights for everyone to howl for heads to roll.

So did the majority of all other European countries. NATS and UK Met Office to blame for them too? Common factor to all would seem to be ICAO?

NATS only have a licence for Controlled Airspace, not the rest. Some countries totally banned flying, some didn't UK was one that didn't. I'm not privy to ministerial briefings as to why HM Government decided not to.

BD

Will be interesting to see what the maint departments find when doing checks after flight through ash.

Or hav Airbus and Boeing just revised the maint manuals !

Based on the amount of BA long haul flights that have either already landed or are approaching Heathrow, that have obviously been heading towards the UK since this morning.....

Dare I ask who actually decided on the re-openeing of the airspace and the new guidelines for flying in ash. Was it NATS and the CAA based on experts advice and test flight data, or was it Willie Walsh who decided to reactivate his long haul last night/this morning?

@ QDMQDMQDM:

Government didn't face the decision making process at 19.00Z tonight: the American, Canadian and Mexican Speedbirds were all posted up on the LHR arrivals board before lunchtime today. It's pretty obvious that yesterday (Monday) was spent in planning and then before nine o'clock this morning BA told Lord Adonis to don a spotter's anorak.

Indeed, Airbus procedure on the Bus after encountering volcanic ash is quite thorough and will take some time.

Depends if the crews report encountering ash I guess.

MM 05-51-25-601 if you're interested.

It will be interesting what Ryanair do, they have no pressing commercial need to fly.
By waiting for the winds to clear the cloud away on Thursday/Friday they may save themselves a lot of money.

Not withstanding the fact that inspecting the engines after every flight will blow their business model and profit..