Met Office update
 

There's a bit of news from the Met Office. They did a test flight over the North sea and found some volcanic ash.

They are reporting three layers, with large particles down at 8000ft.

Is the fact that they sampled in this region down to the likelyhood that this will be the most probable route to maintain transatlantic traffic for the next few days?

Heres a few points I'm thinking about.....



a lot of fruit and veg is flown in to the UK in the cargo holds of aircraft....hence the carbon footprint of a kiwi fruit...


Since there arn't any flights at the moment, and since theres a finite stick on the UK at what point do the supermarkets start to run out of the more exotic fruit and possibly simple things like orange juice?

and....what about the resturants if this is the case.

any thoughts folk?

Chicken Little was right.......the sky is falling!! :eek:

As to the future of companies going tits up, it may/probably will happen but remember that the customers are still going to be there. People will still need to fly from A to B and presumably back again. For each company the goes under, a new one will rise from (excuse the pun) the ashes and quite likely fly their old (or not so old) aircraft.

While this is a very big issue for you guys up north, at some stage the eruptions will stop and hopefully a nice bit of rain to quickly wash the air clean. The industry will recover as it has after past disasters. You just have to wait for the short term pain to pass.

I see from NOTAMS earlier today that the Isle of Man have gone one step further....it seems that when the Island is in the forecast area they are promulgating Restriction of Flying Regulations making it illegal to fly over the Island or within the territorial waters (12 miles I think) - applies to VFR as well!

homer_j: I was wondering similarly about postal mail, which still carries a lot of important stuff. The US discontinued non-air services a few years ago.

wg

<<Heathrow Director,Anthony GA's & others suggestions that a/c fly into the ash cloud over the UK >>

Not me - I think it's verging on the insanity.

Latest London VAA chart has the plume heading towards the eastern seaboard of North America :mad:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation...1271508253.png

pullupterrain: airseb is talking about NATS (what used to be UK National Air Traffic Services) not the North Atlantic Track structure.:ok:

Austrian news agency ORF reported it first, the Airbus 321 (not the one you are referring to) is sitting idle at VIE as I type this.

Latest forecast animation from Norwegian Institute of Air Research.

Forecast Animation AVI

XPM

Smell of Sulphur
 

Just completing a shift providing ATSOCAS in the southwest of England. Three separate pilots operating in the band 3 to 5000ft have reported a smell of sulphur. The unit has given a service to over 130 aircraft today of which at least 3 have been jets in one form or another.

Finnair just informed few days ago all of its staff that if no change in 14 days, no more salary...

Just looked at the latest MET office situation chart and the forecast for tomorrow morning.
It still totally blows my mind to watch the video of the actual volcano with the smoke coming out of it and compare that smoke with the poluted area.

I am no way saying that flying into the ash cloud would be smart thing to do, but almost entire Europe, half of the Russian and most part of the Central Asia?

Really reminds me of the recent Swine Flu hysteria...

New economical recession, here we come, again...:uhoh:

Please tell me boredom has hit in........... someone just said KL and LH are going to conduct low level test flights later........:eek:

Interesting, the Norwegian animation shows pretty much clear over the UK and the majority of Europe on Monday - I'm guessing though it doesn't show the stagnant air that still has ash particles present???

YouTube - Flight BA-009(Falling from the Sky) - 1/3

Don't know how realistic the movie is.

According to David Learmont on SKY News a while ago he said it's impossible to predict when this eruption will stop, and he also said it's a very real possibility its bigger and more damaging sister volcano could erupt at any time. He said there would be no flights within the next 5 days, and the only reason he couldn't predict further ahead is that no-one can be accurate on 5 plus days forcesats.

What he did say, though, was that the worst possible secenario of the volcanoes erupting for the next 2 years is a very real possibility, and yes, we will be in terrible trouble if that's so.

KLM just tweeted "Before dawn KLM is planning to make at least 1 test flight at a lower altitude to make sure it's safe to fly." Is there someone from Schiphol who can perhaps explain what sort of test this is?

I faithfully promise that this image has not been photoshopped, nor was the data filtered. This is reality, really.

I captured it with a simple screengrab within the last hour.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...r/Snapshot.jpg

Just 72 hours ago I would not have believed this to be a remote possibility.

We are cursed by that thing of living in interesting times.

Oh ok thank you ;)

Low flier
 

What your image doesn't show are all the GA buzzing around. Shoreham was like flies around a !!!! today.

BD

Methinks this event will spark some serious research into volcanic ash. Right now Europe seems to be adopting an all-or-nothing approach.

I think you've rather missed the point, BDiONU.

Test flight KLM B737 above the Netherlands, departed 1715z.
 

Lets see what they find out, or bring back with them...

@udachi moya:
At least for LH this is true. They move ten a/c that diverted to MUC to FRA. Also I saw at radarvirtuel earlier today that Condor and Air Berlin moved some a/c at "low level": 11,500 ft.

Where is the evidence?

I think some bloody Eurocontrol lawyer is confusing Eric Moody flying straight through the Volcano overhead ( at night ) and wispy invisible ash over Europe.

We really need some tests and a scientific approach . The lawyers and the "Elf n Safety " brigade need to get out of the debate.

Its CAVOK over most of southern England and no ash evident.

I hear that Gatwick was welcoming GA. Allegedly a large number of biplanes.

And until that point what is the safest course of action?

BD

Ref posts 638 & 641, what about the medical evacuation flights from Afganistan back to the UK with wounded service personnel. If these flights cannot enter UK airspace, where else can the wounded get the quality treatment that is not available in Afganistan. I hope this has been resolved.

Evidence hmmmm.
Where have you been for the past 3 days?
Please think, pause, think, then post.
They haven't shut down the sky for a laugh

Hi,

is there a obvious reason to ground the regional traffic..which could fly at lower levels...where normally no ash (or just a few) could be met..???

Thanks

Yes it's called gravity, been around a few years. The ash doesn't just stay up high, what goes up must come down.

BD

An Icelandic volcanologist was just interviewed on C4 news. He reports seismic activity near Katla saying an eruption is 'very likely' :ooh:

Great Photo, found here Eyjafjallajökull eruption update for 4/17/2010 : Eruptions
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...h/IMG_1389.jpg

roljoe I volunteer you to give it a try

test flight
 

I just heared they have a test flight from KLM
Its a boeing 737 Left Schiphol airport at 19.15 ours. they go see if the air is clean enough. they obnly fly above holland In first they planned to fly to germany but later changed the plan and just fly around in Holland. Even president of the KLM mr Peter Hartman is on board.

Grtz

Chuftiscope piccies of the hot section would be nice ... or mebbe not, depending how representative their flight is of longhaul departures/arrivals through the main cloud which is going to be over inland Europe for the next few days. :(

Presumably the UK and EU forces needing medevacing can go in the interim to a USAF base instead of home base in extremis rather than risking things by flying in as an emergency flght ? Have not checked the mil forum today.

A quick check on the Rumour Service noted this posting:
"Currently sitting in Cyprus as one of many EOT returnees. All accom here now full, and airbridge appears to have ground to a halt. The last few days have been utter chaos.

Current priority is to get those on R&R away, then EOT.

CCAST flights still possible, I understand, as they are emergencies and so permitted under NATS rules."

But there is also possible concern about resupply from NATO stocks in EU for Afghanistan if the flight situation stays sticky in the medium term and other logistics channels cannot be calibarated.

Roljoe, in addition to the previously noted law of gravity, note the large red outlined mass in the MET ash forecast (latest at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation...1271526609.png ) denoting surface to FL200. Of note in the latest is the remark that "showing thinner layers didn't provide any significant additional information."

This seems to imply that that big mass of fine ash is forecast to descend slowly through all FL (that gravity thing again). Of interest are the more recent sampling efforts to gain more information on actual dispersal, especially in primary flight paths.

Here is the track from Friday's attempt to run BA 284 from SFO to GLA:

FlightAware > British Airways #284 > 16-Apr-2010 > KSFO-KSFO

Looks like they got the hook over Montana.

Lufthansa today ferried ten empty a/c from EDDM to EDDF without any problem. They went VFR and are said to have remained low at around 10000 feet.