Question For The Men Up Front
 

I know this is a pilots forums but being a retired engineer after looking after you lot for 40 some years I feel I can ask a question on this forum.
Why is Ryanair always first to cancel so many flights out of Prestwick and other airports?

Take care out there, :confused: Peter

The Beeb was suggesting that wind had swung to the SW earlier than expected.

Predictions
 

Those scary charts are 6-hourly PREDICTIONS, not actuals. Man cannot live by predictions alone.:)

Latest chart just issued:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...1005171200.gif

The latest charts look like this. Strange that predictions change so quickly. Or would there be someting else going on?

If you look closely at the 0600 chart, in post 2883, you can see the lower black zone is a coffee stain from the forecasters mug.

The chart is in fact a Rorchsach Blot test to determine how you voted at the last Election. If you look very closely, you can see a silhouette of Gordon Brown leaving No 10.

Right, time for my pills :cool:

What have you started - I can see a wild boar rearing up out of Europe.


I guess you also saw a bore.

Errrr - the 1200 chart shows that the Black area that extended South virtually to LGW up to 0600 this morning (and was predicted to hang around until tomorrow at earliest) has now moved (VERY) rapidly North and shrunk a lot, so the southern boundary now runs through central Scotland.

This is crazy! Clearly the VA cloud could not really move at anything like that rate between 0600 and 1200 the same day, even in gale-force southerlies (which we ain't got anyway). Furthermore, the behaviour of VA clouds does not include ash suddenly falling to earth, which is the only other simple explanation for the change.

So what's going on? Reworking of the modelling software? Redefinition of the input data (which was perhaps overly pessimistic up until this morning) or duff / very fast-changing (??) weather / mass airflow data?

You tell me!

Until it's clear how this change suddenly occurred, it seems that VACC forecasting has a bit of a credibility gap to fill (and maybe plenty of spare ash to fill it with!). :confused::}

Possibly because G-LUXE has been flying a volcano ash patrol this morning and hasn't found ash where the computer previously said there was.

If so, were all the airport closures in the last 24 hours based on duff info?

But previous research flights took place on Saturday (??) which (presumably) confirmed what was being forecast then! Very odd

Perrin
 

Its a good question "why do Ryanair seem to cancel first" i can only assume that they make more or lose less by bunching people on to subsequent flights? plus many will simply not bother to reclaim their money and a lot of tickets will have been sold at below cost in what is a shoulder period, for sure you can bet they wont have done it to increase their costs.

If you had two aircraft flying with say a 130 paxs and half were on "sale" tickets you could probably improve the yield by flying the next day with one full aircraft.

The computer simulations their are creating suck because they are using PC's and not Mac's :E

These massive changes to the forecasts every six hours are causing havoc - frontline staff getting !!!!! from pax holding laptops and pointing at these VAAC charts ........... so unprofessional

Pressure to justify re-opening the airports requires the charts to be redrawn.


I'd guess. We have a new government after all.

....and because of the 'very fluid VA forecast situation', it looks like LGW has probably got lots of SLF sitting around getting cross but no aircraft to load up!!! On Radar Virtuel, it looks like Sleepy City!

They should do the charts and closures every 2 hours or so. That way a 12 hour closure may only last 4 or 6 hours. It seems if the ash is going to be too thick at 6PM to 10PM they close the airspace at 1PM to 1AM the next day.

Katla waking up?
 

Just to add more fun... there was an earthquake below the Katla volcano within the last 12 hours. If Katla wakes up (which it surely will based on history) all the current fun and games will look like kiddy stuff.

- GY

Katla little earthquake
 

Well said, in fact this webcam
Katla | Ríkisútvarpið vefur
is the most important to watch right now!!!
If the eruption of Katla starts we all better forget about flying tubes and forums, instead we must run to the nearest supermarket and immediately stock on food, water, etc. :ok: :ok: :ok:

The latest FODCOM from the CAA is at http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/FOD201018.pdf

Introduces Time Limited Zones which seem to allow some flight for short periods in low concentrations of Ash by AOC holders.