BA??? who are they..... oh yeah a commercial airline with aspirations of their own to ensure planes keep flying. According to this article, specimens were sent to various labratories, that is not in doubt. However I am always very dubious about such articles when the person who publishes it are not exactly independent.

As things stand, we now have an agreed level of ash densities where if exceeded, may result in engine damage. The real danger of such an article, which attempts to minimise the risk of ash intake into the engines to the readers, it may convince the powers that be that this ash concentration limit could be raised up and up.

It is pretty obvious to me what challenges we face next....the restriction of trans-atlantic flight. Making reference to the VAAC charts would only remind us of the dangers. This ash cloud is MASSIVE. Restricting trans-atlantic flights, legacy airlines such as the BA (the author of the already mentioned article) would be a massive blow to their income. BA already facing the likelihood of a 20 Day strike due to cabin crew dispute.....it is of no surprise to me at least, BA would publish such an article.

HighLow

Are you suggesting that BA have fabricated this report? As there are many engineers who would be only to happy to run to the media with such a fraud I very very much doubt it.

So taking the fact that on the whole the article is accurate then we have to look at the implications of these field studies on whether the new ash guidlines could be moved again?

Personally my instincts are to stay with the new limits until there has been far more testing and understanding of the complex reaction of ash and turbine engines.

Pace

SSK - from those charts, there wont be much if any on the northern tracks needing KEF!

Highlow/Sunfish

No airline will risk aircraft or passengers or make false statements following inspections. The industry has wide experience of operating around areas of ash. You forget if the airline executives are found to have taken unnecessary risks with either investors money or public safety they will individually be liable to prosecution in the UK at least.

It really is inflammatory comment to suggest the airlines are flying when it is not safe to do so. It is possible the airlines may suffer from long term costs due premature engine ware but to date as far as I am aware there has not been a single case in my own airline of an ash encounter despite some of the assertions on this web site. However, time will tell. I am also aware that our own inspections have come to much the same conclusion as BA's.

Why is it some seem to need to find a conspiracy to risk public safety? Do you hear the airlines squealing about the latest airspace closures? No because they are sensible and based on the best data we have, not a blanket over reaction. It is possible this volcano will close UK and European airspace again and as long as the guidelines in place now are applied I doubt very much you will hear the airlines arguing as the closure will be based on a sensible policy!

I am not suggesting anything of the sort !!! It is human nature to push and push, and I am just worried that commercial pressures will result in us pushing this too far. Look at the NASA Challenger accident, the engineer suspected there could be an issue with the O Rings, but was quickly over ruled due to pressure to get the shuttle airborne.

For the people who were quick to come to the conclusion that I was making inflammatory comments towards BA, I hope this can clarify my position.

These are testing times, and we are all in agreement safety should never be compromised. So lets see how this unfolds....

All i know is ASH and Turbine Jet Engines don't get on well together.

@pace
 

Pace,

I've been trying to reply to your PM, but have been unable to do so because your inbox is full and you disabled e-mail "reachability" Please clear some old messages in your inbox.

Sabenaboy

All of which is valid but misses the point. The DC-8 hit ash that wasn't visible (wrapped in ice/cloud or whatever) and wasn't forecast to be there. NO airspace closure regime, including the previous "zero tolerance" is going to help you avoid that situation, other than not flying at all, ever.

This incident is therefore completely irrelevant when discussing what forecasts / measurements / levels should be used to close airspace, because it occurred in airspace that would have been open under any regime.


Furthermore,this "invisible but dangerous" ash is either a freak/one-off, so there is only this one incident, or it is common but we only know of this one incident because the a/c happended to have the instruments on board. If it's a one-off then it is irrelevant for safety or commercial considerations, if it's not, then other a/c have been flying (unknowingly) through the same stuff for years, so we already know the maintenance cost.

The magic 2000 itself has a safety margin over what the mfrs. provided as a figure. There is also a buffer zone around the predicted 2000 concentration zone as a further safety margin.

That's the airlines problem. The shutdown cost to them has been quoted in excess of £200M per day. That's several new engines per day. Reports of any damage, let alone written off engines, from several days flying through non-zero ash seem to be rather rare...

Personally, I do think that long term there will be some increase in maint costs and reduced engine life, but not significant. A few nutters with fizzy drink bottles, and the reaction thereto, have probably cost the industry more.

Highlow

I take your point but I really do not believe the airlines are pushing in the way you fear. We operate around ash a lot in certain parts of the world and the airlines are well aware of the problems and risks associated with ash clouds.

I appreciate your analogy but this is a very different situation to Challenger and this is not perhaps the thread to get in to why. The airlines will not push to fly if they feel it is unsafe they just want a sensible policy that exists in areas of the world where ash encounters are common.

However, I do understand your concerns but I really believe the situation is now being managed appropriately and as time goes by the authorities will improve the way they manage the airspace with better models and detection methods. The one silver lining is we will get unified airspace over europe sooner rather than later this will, if done properly, improve efficiency, reducing fuel burn and time en-route.

Tagron, does it say what aircraft these inspections have been carried out on?

If all 24 engines are from shorthaul aircraft flying around Europe then this data could be very useful and very positive news.

However if its from the long haul fleet(s) spending significantly less time in the areas of volcanic ash then perhaps the data is less useful?

one post only !
 

The straight answer to your question is "No", there was no such indication in that article..

However, I infer from a BA statement of two weeks ago that they are likely to be the longhaul aircraft that landed at LHR/LGW on the evening of April 20 when UK airspace was first reopened, i.e.B747/767/777. Can anyone else confirm this ?

It might be of interest to recall that on that day the UKMO chart forecast of possible ash in the height band SFC-FL200 showed it covering not only the UK but most of western and some of central Europe. At the same time Eurocontrol had published a chart showing areas of forecast high ash concentration that could have presented a safety issue. This chart looked totally different. The areas affected were confined to the Atlantic, i.e not over UK or Western Europe at all.

And this helps explain BA's rationale in dispatching those flights. They were planned to land if necessary at other European airports, and some did just that, in Ireland, France, Belgium, Netherlands Germany and Spain because all that airspace was already open based presumably on the Eurocontrol forecast, not the UKMO version on which the British authorities were relying. And then UK airspace opened....

ash cloud
 

Will operations in Iberia be affected by the new ash chart projections showing no fly zones over northern spain?

http://tweakers.net/ext/f/6hx0566Aq7...iwvLo/full.gif

:eek:

Above chart
 

Very pretty colours and patterns. But for people not in the know, whats it mean in laymans terms?

I think most professional pilots are familiar with significant weather charts and many are also familiar with oceanic tracks. But regardless, the chart sort of speaks for itself concerning the forecast location of the ash clouds.

However, my reason for posting this is that you don't get to see this orientation of the oceanic tracks (A through G) every day! That is some routing if you want to fly from, say, London to New York! :uhoh:

As for the data on the DC8 incident in 2000 being "Old", I note that the engines on it are CFM 56 - variants of which are fitted to aircraft today. More modern engines are only going to have higher T's and P's in the hot section as that determines thermodynamic efficiency.

I note that the DC8 had a "one off" experience with Ash. I also note that the Atlantic route is not flown "one off".

The report also gives the lie to the statement that there has never been damage associated with this event. As at 2000:


The engineers have said 2000 micrograms. That is the end of the story until the boffins have decided otherwise.

I would imagine that somewhere a test cell is being modified to allow ash ingestion to be studied in more detail.

And when you read the 100 reports you will see in virtually every incident that the aircraft flew through or 'just around' an ash cloud with clearly visible features (St Elmos fire, sand blasting of windows, cabin filling with dust, black cloud of bits of gravel from volcano directly underneath, etc). The crews may have not noticed the cloud was ash vs. water or they may not have been able to avoid due to being night ... but they were clear clouds rather than very low ackground concentrations in clear blue 100km viz sky that are the basis of your concern.

(Note - for the record, there are a few incidents where the details from the crew/airline/NAA are sufficiently sketchy you can draw no conclusion as to the flight conditions - or sometimes the day or if the crew noticed at the time)

MM Flynn:

Go ahead, buy an aircraft fitted with jet engines worth millions of dollars and become your own test pilot.

The Gurus have spoken, and their word is law.

Sunfish

Gurus?

latest London VAAC NWP Volcanic Ash Concentration Charts
 

Have a look at the latest London VAAC NWP Volcanic Ash Concentration Charts.

It looks like there's going to be a lot of problems in NE Spain by 1200Z tomorrow. :(