Sabenaboy you are getting silly. 47 you say not 7?

What is the safest course of action. What a daft question. Of course you must apply common sense to everything.

CB at destination. So many variables but in the simplest case take extra fuel. Avoid. Hold. Wait for the right moment.

MEL - have you dispatched or not? Is there engineering cover down route? etc etc

Don't make me out to be some by the book big girl who isn't a REAL pilot hand flying all the way with one eye closed and one hand behind my back because I support the decision of experts.

Look. Whatever. You are a hero. You fly. I will sit on the ground. I am sure a man of your capabilities will have no problems gliding the bird back in for tea, medals and a public parade.

P.S I do agree with some of what you are saying but I think you are not reading my posts properly. I can no longer be bothered now. Goodbye.

NASA ash cloud visible or invisible
 

Profit Max #770

From the top of page 11 of the NASA incident report:


Sounds like NASA's encounter was with a visible ash cloud.

Regards

S

Because ATC can not give an IFR clearance as the airspace is regulated to zero flow which means no IFR clearance can be given to enter the relevant airspace. VFR is still allowed of course as the airspace is not closed.

Surely the point is that the risks are not known to any degree of precision and there are not procedures in place to deal with them - other than the measures currently taken. It's a continuously changing situation. If I were running an airline I wouldn't want to base my decision on whether one gung-ho individual were willing to risk his life flying through or near volcanic ash. And I wouldn't want to risk reducing large number of jet engines to scrap metal even if nothing actually hit the ground in an unfortunate manner.

I'm no fan of big government, still less of Gordon McBroun, but to see current measures as manifestations of the nanny state, or of dreaded eurodomination (eek!), and to want to key decisions in current conditions left to individual airlines, or individual pilots, seem lunatic to me.

Remind me not to fly with you any time soon.

Well this could be a reaction to the suing culture that prevails in Euroland now, now let me think, where did that start...????? I do believe it was the "Good ol' U S of A"........

There's no room for macho in aviation, duuuude.....

Ozaub wrote:

"Sadly nobody was interested when Australian scientists developed a volcanic ash detector ten years ago".

Down here in Australasia/South Pacific we are surrounded by active volcanoes (Yassur in Vanuatu is in permanent eruption). That's why Australia paid attention to this problem. But - as Ozaub hints - nobody has ever been interested in properly studying the problem or spending money on mitigating technologies and strategies. 'Fly round the bugger' has been the simple response. Yet we have plenty of evidence that volcanic ejecta are unlike other forms of dust, are much more damaging than them, that they are hard to detect when invisible to the naked eye, and yet can be damaging even when invisible (Australian aviators in PNG know this very well).

If anything good comes out of the disastrous social and economic consequences of this natural event it will be that, at last, attention and resources will be applied to the many scientists around the world who have spent decades devoted to an underfunded and unappreciated cottage industry concerned with the impacts of volcanic activity on aircraft operations.

As you can see, as usual, it is not a conspiracy but a c*** up, and one that was embedded by generations of industry and government decision makers resulting in a no-win legacy to the hapless current generation who have to try and deal with this situation. Feel for them, don't yell at them - or, at least, not until they show signs of ducking the issue again when this all dies down.

KLM 777
 

Just spotted this lone KLM 777 coming in to Amsterdam. Anybody know why they did this?
http://www.radarvirtuel.com/
Unfortunately you wont be able to see this now, but it was PAE-AMS KLM777 and the only aircraft in the swathe of grey ash warning area.

Just noticed on http://www.radarvirtuel.com/ the following aircraft overhead PMI. If this information is accurate how are TUI operating Las Palmas > Gothenburg through the ash cloud?


Flight Number : BLX284
Company : TUIfly Nordic
ICAO Hex Code : 4A8142
Reg Code : SE-DZK
Model : Boeing - B737-804
Departure : LPA - Las Palmas De Gran Canaria, Gando - Spain
Arrival : GOT - Gothenburg, Landvetter - Sweden
Last Message : 7:38:59 UTC
Latitude : 39.36214
Longitude : 2.79405
Altitude : 10972 m - 35997 ft
Ground Speed : 867 km/h - 539 mph - 468 knots
Vertical Speed : -20 m/min - -66 ft/min (DESCENT)
Squawk : 5371
Heading : 67º

What a can of worms, I mean in a flash, ash and trash, rehash, no cash, bash maybe crash.
Off the thread slightly but have on numerious occasions flown in and out of some hectic sand storms/dust filled air space in west and north africa and yes there was (eventually) evidence of pitting etc. on LE, nacelles and fan blades-nobody seemed to worry too much!
Guess we living in changing times where it's easier to say no, than well lets take a good look and just maybe....

Volcano and Airline Staff
 

Good evening from my hotel room in China. Its the end of my sixth day of a two day trip with no sign of it getting any shorter. Im considering starting the long trip to Ireland by road. I cant tell you how lonely it is being isolated from your family in these circumstances. I was speaking to a couple last night that our flying to NY to get a cruise to Europe
Rumours are now around that the airlines will have to look at letting go staff during these times. That really scares me. My job is long haul out of London and things dont look like improving for a while.
No indication from the airline yet but the mood in the hotel bar from all the foreign crews is not good.
I keep hearing people sayings its great to hav a ew days off. This is serious. We could have crews losing their jobs.

Tom

We're with you in spirit - can't be easy.

Car hire could be a problem - and the ferries are increasingly booked up. Then there's always a taxi. Rumour has it that a well known actor spent €3,500 on a taxi across much of Northern Europe.

KLM 737 test flight indicates no volcanic ash risk
 

Well..hmm... based on the information i collected from various science sources, i expect to be laid off by the end of next week (major airline)

Another One...
 

Kl7421 744

This too shall pass and you will look back on these days with fondnest when you're flogging along putting it all back together.

KLM had to divert 7 planes to Düsseldorf on Thursday evening. Dutch Airspace was closed for ALL flights (even VFR) at that time, while the German wasn't. Today they are ferrying all of them back to Amsterdam.

Re the post from #820 So you think the aussies, arabs etc are enjoying the lack of competition? Emirates have 40000 stranded passengers ( as of yesterday), and are paying to keep more than 5000 of those in accomodation and sandwiches in Dubai. Some of the ME airlines have had to cancel routes as far away as Australia because their aircraft are stuck on the ground in Europe and they have no planes to service "unaffected" routes. Qantas have cancelled all flights to Europe for the third day running. And while a few pilots on this forum are enjoying their time at home with the kids, I have Australian family stuck in godawful parts of England who are missing out on their kid's wedding at home. There is little silver lining in this, unless you operate the Eurostar or live under the Heathrow flight path.

Whats the actual measured data
 

As I have not read all posts I'm sorry if this has been covered before.

1 Has any research aircraft / UAV flown and measured the concentration of dust in the different areas around the volcano. I fail to understand how an area from 85 east to 55 west and 70 north to 40 south can all have dangerous concentrations of dust. As an astronomer last night the sky at my home in Essex was the clearest I've seen it in months.

2 Of course understand that directly downwind for a certain distance that there will be danger however what is the dispersal rate of the dust. Where I live in the UK every summer we have dust fall out from the Desert and nobody seems bothered by that.

3 What is the validation of the computer model used to show the rate of contamination / dispersion of the dust. i.e. how valid are these predictions. Somebody please tell me that this is a tested and proved computer model and not just a met mans whim!!!

4 I expect the 'Be safe police / regulators ' will jump on my mail but I'm schedule to fly to the far east on Tuesday and if I'm cancelled I want to know it was for the right reason and not some government nerd covering his butt.

***

One thing is for sure - if the authorities don't quickly get a grip on the technical side of this ie. what are the concentrations, where "exactly" is the ash (not what their model predicts), and what is safe, there will be many pilots out of work in the very near future......... just consider the effect if this goes on for weeks or months

As well as pilots many assciated jobs and aviation service companies will be hit and, of course, the wider economy.

On the bright side all the greenies who want to stop air travel might wind their necks in a bit particularly if they've been stuck abroad at a "conference"!!

Whats the actual measured data - Orionsbelt ......... exactly !!