Hiding.

Nevertheless some research into effects to aeroplanes by volcanic ash needs to be done in the immediate future. I would recommend NASA or National Geographic (mainly for the photographs)

btw - those of you that have access to sky news (and if its repeated) - Frances Wilson - did a superb 5 minute section on tomorrows weather, the plume, the weather systems interactions etc -well worth a watch if its repeated.

I hope the planned resumption of flying is due to the reported change in eruption emissions, but I do worry it's more to do with economics. I have no doubt that companies will hide behind the authority and responsibility of the commanders if incidents do start occurring, rather taking responsibility themselves, whilst putting unequivocal pressure on crews to operate regardless of their individual concerns. That legal and employment concern is still second to my safety concerns.

The test flights have proven nothing. The military aircraft which were damaged suffered that damage in just a few hours in relatively low density areas. Commercial aircraft will operate many times the duration of those F16s and F18s in a single day, and while the damage to those fighters did not cause engine failure, such prolonged flight in the ash as we will do could quite conceivable do so as the glass accumulates. I doubt that any aircraft will suffer serious issues on the first flights, or maybe even in the first day, but unless the engines are boroscoped very frequently, sooner or later events will start to occur.

I am not trained, paid or insured as a test pilot. Those who insist this is an over-reaction and that normal ops should continue are ignoring every piece of real evidence of numerous scientists, engineers and several broken aeroplanes. They lack the judgement and attitude to be safe pilots, and it's sad to see that so many of them exist.

Not good :(

Statement on Icelandic volcanic eruption: Monday April 19, 2145

Since our last statement at 1530 today, the volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east towards the UK. This demonstrates the dynamic and rapidly changing conditions in which we are working.

Latest information from the Met Office shows that the situation is worsening in some areas. Based on this information, the situation for Northern Irish airports for the morning is uncertain, due to the new ash cloud. The latest information shows that Scottish airports should be available from 0700 and more airspace over England may become available from 1300 although not as far south as the main London airports.

We will continue to monitor Met Office information and the situation is likely to change overnight. We will make a further statement at approximately 0300 (local time), tomorrow, Tuesday 20 April and again at 0700.

R44

There were a dozen or so operations cancelled for CYYT last evening and early this morning after the suggestions from the UK met office of that area being affected by ash. Those concerns it appears haven't been echoed, or at least considerably downplayed by the Canadian met folks. Media reports indicate that the folks on this side of the pond tasked with watching that kind of event are saying currently nothing closer than 1,000 kms east of CYYT Operations are back up and running and currently only being affected by the usual fog etc.

Not an easy decision for someone or some committee I guess ... plenty of data to look at, but as Dream Buster may have been implying with tongue in cheek about Cranfield's sense of urgency, with the world in these parts at a standstill, what we get tomorrow may not be a very scientific decision, well not as we usually expect it in aviation, Jim :uhoh:

I'm with WhipperSnapper.

They have already started doing that.

Regarding Lufthansa VFR flights, Deutsche Flugsicherung spokesperson stated that PiCs have full responsibility for safe conduct of flight. DLH spokesperson agreed, adding that all safety regulations are being obeyed.

Didn't know Luftie is allowed to fly VFR with pax onboard.

NATS at 10.00....

Latest information from the Met Office shows that the situation is worsening in some areas. Based on this information, the situation for Northern Irish airports for the morning is uncertain, due to the new ash cloud. The latest information shows that Scottish airports should be available from 0700 and more airspace over England may become available from 1300 although not as far south as the main London airports.

Will BA try and get something in the air ?

Not economics, but politics (a lot worse).

Public opinion is turning against this thing rapidly.

604guy

Thanks mate, suppose to be flying from Manchester to Calgary tomorrow, not holding my breath though... I'm not a plank driver so can't really give much opinion to the high altitude ops but I dont or wont feel 100% comfortable if we do go....

re DLH outgoing flights (post 1711)
 

and even less well after sunset ...

The middle ground.
 

Apart from my brief foray into this forum for some humour (from which I quickly retreated as the mods weren't to keen), I have just been reading for a few days, hoping for a let up so that I can sort out the various positions of some family around the globe. (staff travel).

As I said before, I fly, I studied Geology at University, however I would not put myself in a position to say I am qualified to discern whether it is safe to fly.

As a passenger I have flown in proximity to erupting volcanoes. The visible plume was obviously avoided and despite the effect of the size of the plume I am sure we were avoiding at quite some distance.

I am aware the the damage a turbine could be subjected to if ingesting x amount of ash.

Nobody really knows what x is equal to though. Not a volcanologist, not a pilot, certainly not Nats, Eurocontrol nor the Met office, nor, I hazard a guess, the blokes who designed the Engine (apart from the carte blanche and slightly vague referrence about known ash clouds).

Since the initial days of the eruption even those lovely satellite images became fairly useless at detecting the presence of ash in the atmosphere, and so, the boffins relied on mathematical projections of where the ash should be.

Basically what I am getting at is we didn't know a whole bloody lot.

I am not usually astounded by PPRuNE contributors capacity for jumping down somebody's throat, but I am often astounded by sheer bloody arrogance. People on both sides of the line have been assuming a whole damn lot. That flying through UK airspace would have resulted in engine flame outs, or such significant damage as to warrant the engine being decommissioned. That there was absolutely no danger at all and the conservatives have paid Nats to do the incumbent some damage (or some such conspiracy).

The truth lies somewhere in between, and what has really bothered me throughout the whole thing, apart from not being able to pronounce the name of the Volcano, is how little seems to have been done to assess the situation until the Airlines turned around and said 'look this can't continue or we'll not exist next week'.

Anybody who argues their motives are wholly from a financial point of you are being naive. God knows they cannot afford to lose as much as they have done, but remaining grounded for a week would have a far smaller financial impact than losing all of your customers as your planes start calling Mayday all over the world.

I think the initial reaction to close the airspace was probably warranted given how little we knew, but the laissez faire approach that seems to have been taken to getting some hard evidence as to what measures were actually necessary long term is bizarre. And a couple of F18's from Finland and a Dornier somewhere over Grimsby don't cut it for me. Nor does mathematical modelling or guess work.

My two peneth and nothing more, feel free to rip it apart if you like.

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes the media to soak this up. They having just tooled up all their 'Airspace is reopening' headlines.

Gosh darn it, nature can be bloody inconvinient.

Matt101: Wrong
 

Your 5th para is wrong. We know a lot. Don't go there. Listen to VAAC and NATS.

Well the met office are quite rightly just telling it how it is, and quite rightly washing their hands of commercial decisions.

The very fact that the airspace was meant to open quite nicely at 0600, 1200, 1800 in a linear fashion implies to me that someone has been leaned on.

From the met site, the ash is hanging over us in precisely the same as for the past week.

I was thinking earlier, why doesn't willie walsh conduct a one man flight marathon in a 747 over the north sea? He could even thrash the engines to the max cruise for prolonged periods....

At least it isn't the case, per the Protect and Survive videos, that fallout is deadly dangerous ( on the ground at least)

For what its worth.....speaking as a many years experienced aircraft engineer with a fair bit of boroscope experience......I have seen engines damaged by volcanic ash...some minor damage, the engine still worked, produced power etc but had suffered damage that required it to be removed for overhaul. the problem is the ash cant be seen easily unless its a dense cloud. (Like the Eric Moody experience..although at night they didn't see it) For the airlines to take the risk of damaging the engines...its a big risk. I fully agree its moving towards the 'calculated risk' scenario now. BA conducted a flight over UK/Wales etc, there was reportedly no evidence at all of any ash deposits/damage etc. Engine boroscopes were done before and after the flight with no damage....does this prove anything? depends on exactly where they flew compared to the Met/Nats reported ash areas. If the airlines repeatedly flew through these areas then the damaged may be caused. if they are willing to accept the possible damage and overhaul costs of the engines then Ok....from my own personal experience, it comes down to a financial decision. They can 'safely' fly however, the engines would have to be inspected (boroscoped) almost every day or two (depending on the type/ammount of flights) and the airlines take the risk of the overhaul cost. (I'm willing to do the overtime!!!)...potentially the risk/cost of damage will exceed the cost of operating. (Removing engines takes time, as well as the potential lack of spares in the near future...) I would be happy to take a flight in the current situation if I know the airline is tsking all the steps to monitor the engines etc properly......

Public Opinion is not being helped by Willie Wonka who like many other cowboys insist its much ado about nothing.

Sky news reporting the statement from "National Air Transport Traffic service" :ugh:now, yet still also reporting that Midlands airports will be opening at 1300 and London airports at 1800!

They need to stop reading PPRuNe - No idea where they got that from.

Where? Show me to this information. It's not secret if it exists I assume.

Matt101

Hear, Hear, Exactly the opinion I tried to get out there

We have made snap decisions to start, we had little choice. Now don't whine about who is to blame and who should pay. Let's learn from it and enable ourselves to cope with it from this point onward.

00nix
(an aerospace engineer working in ATM)

Here's a link to CBC news. It seems that a few flights to/from St. Johns, Newfoundland were cancelled this morning as a precaution. There are, of course, many people stranded at Toronto, Montreal and allthe other international airports here awaiting the resumption of flights to Europe.

http://http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/04/19/nl-flights-resume-419.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g12:r1:c0.46815:b33053428

On the beach

Read your airframe or engine manufacturer's guidance
 

We spend time researching and typing this guidance to avoid our aircraft owners and pilots getting into trouble. Goodnight.

I'm with matt101 on this, also as a scientist, I think the industry is missing the best chance it may get for a while in collecting as much data as possible by running 'propper test flights' under scientificly designed sets flight variables, in order to make the predictions of what the safe flying ppm levels are and also what other steps should be made to increase safety for flights in ash clouds.

Re: Canadians
 

R44: A few flights at St John's NF were cancelled last night based on VA warning in a SIGMET, which interestedly inconvenienced a few politicians and celebrities attending a national entertainment awards bash in town.

All back to normal now, at least on the domestic routes.

Quote from St John's Airport official: “It’s up to the airlines, it’s always up to the airlines,” said Marie Manning.


Volcanic cloud fears lift, Canadian airspace remains open

daikilo,

I quite agree. What my 5th paragraph was getting at though is what iwantmyhols has said above.

What is this x ammount? Is it = 0? if so fine. But I am unconvinced that anybody KNOWS this. Also I am unconvinced that anyoen knows the exact concentrations in the predicted contamination areas.

I don't blame anyone at all. I think the VAAC did exactly what they were supposed to do and Nats did what they had to do initially. I just feel that much like the belated sending of an aged Arc Royal to pick up some punters, more should have been done to get quality data, much sooner.

Data collected over Germany by DLR flight
 

The German center for air and space travel (DLR) accomplished a successful measuring flight on 19 April 2010 over Germany. After a flight time of more than three hours the Falcon returned to its base 20:45. The route went from Oberpfaffenhofen to Leipzig, then over Hamburg for Bilthoven (the Netherlands) and via Stuttgart to Oberpfaffenhofen. On the first leg the Falcon descended down to about two kilometers altitude and then climbed back to cruise level. During the remaining flight measurements were taken at altitudes between two and twelve kilometers. All measuring systems on board functioned perfectly. The LIDAR showed ash cloud structures in vertically separated layers. These layers were present at various altitudes en route. The aerosol measurements showed that the volcanic ash clouds encounterd had aged. A brownish cloud colouring was seen temporarily during the flight. These measurements permit a comparison with ground-based measurements (Actualization 19 April 2010, 22,00 o'clock)

DLR Portal - DLR-Forschungsflugzeug "Falcon 20E" zum Messflug gestartet

I understood that the BA flight flew at 40,000 feet, which is well above the ash cloud which topped at 35,000feet ( I think), so is that a representative test? Or proof that an aircraft can climb and descend through an ash cloud and have no damage, as opposed to the BA flight in the 80's which flew through the ash cloud for a prolonged period of time.
I'm not sure what altitude the KLM,DLH and AFR flights were at.

Louby

For what its worth here are my thoughts......


I'd like a cup of tea.......more importantly..


We all know that Volcanic ash ruins and can destroy engines.

We all know that the Volcano is , or was spewing out ash.


We don't know what the concentrations are

We don't know how much ash it takes to ruin an engine(or pitot)


A BA 747 has no ash detection equipment on board...how do we know they or anyone else hit any ash. Is the ash evenly spread out or is it more dense in certain areas.

Next.

If my airline tells me to go flying tomorrow, where do I stand legally by saying I'd rather not.

I don't like people who point out problems without solutions.....so here's mine.

A few weeks ago a chap strapped a camera into a plastic box, attached it to a ballon and took plenty of pics from upto a few miles.

Why haven't the bods made small ash detection kits, attached them to balloons and started launching them. Assuming this is possible....

Lastly.

the kettles boiled, so I'm off.

KLM went to 41000ft. Unsure of DLH / AF.

Sigh.

Nobody doubts that if you fly through a visible ash cloud billowing out of a volcano, or immediately downstream of it, then you are likely to damage the engines (and airframe for that matter). That was what happened to the BA aircraft.

At issue is whether flying in an "ash cloud" that is in fact invisible to the naked eye would be harmful to engines. If so, how invisible? If not, how dense?

klm went to 41000ft, ba to 40000ft- are they trying to check that they can fly easily above the ash clouds? those sound very high to be trying anything else.

Paul:

If we knew the answer to that we might now be flying. Unfortunately nobody knows that just yet.

We have gone full circle...again! We are just stating what we think we know and repeating what we have already asked/said.

What is needed is hard facts...data if you will. The DLR aircraft is a start but we have lost time here.

I'll make a prediction then.....airlines tomorrow will do they're darnest to get into the sky !

The BA test flight flew at 5000ft increments starting at 10000' and finishing at 40000'.

Cocerning the latest eruption looking at the upper winds between FL 100 and FL240 I would expect this one to track over Scotland (maybe skirting Northern Ireland) and then track east to Scandinavia. So maybe south UK will be "ok"?

BA, i believe started at 15,000' and climbed 5,000 feet at 5 minute intervals until they reached 41,000

GW

Just watching the Icelandic president saying 'this eruption is a small reharsal of the Katla eruption......I'm not saying if but when.....it's time to start preparing for the katla eruption.'

let's be honest ladies and gentlemen. We don't know what the effects of these volcanic events are. I think most people will agree that a single flight in these ash cloud events of the last few day will probably not cause an instant engine failure. But how much will these ash clouds reduce the redundancies of an engine's life. Say a normal inspection period of a part is once every 100 flight hours. What if these ash clouds now cause that part to fail between these inspections. Normally part A will fail every 500 hours so needs to be inspected every 100 hours. However microscopic abraisive particles make it highly likely that said part may fail in 100 hours time. We're just eroding those levels of safety.



Just my tupneth worth

"A few weeks ago a chap strapped a camera into a plastic box, attached it to a ballon and took plenty of pics from upto a few miles.

Why haven't the bods made small ash detection kits, attached them to balloons and started launching them. Assuming this is possible....

Lastly.

the kettles boiled, so I'm off."

Enjoy your tea...

has anyone actually checked the effect of a camera, plastic box and balloon going down an intake? Suppose it would only stop the one, unless everyone started doing it.

May be irrelevant anyway;

BBC News - New volcano ash cloud prompts fresh flight doubts

If I were flying tomorrow, I'd take a night-stop kit.

Anyone know anything about a turbine heli (emergency response) that had apparently been flying in the Edinburgh area to emergencies, beetween 1000ft - 2000ft agl for the last few days and is now apparently grounded due to severe engine damage associated with the ash ??

Young Paul (and others), ignorance and the failure to learn from past mistakes, will be no excuse. Please read the already oft repeated incident in the same vicinity about 10 years ago...On the basis of a single 'commercial' flight here and there, climbing through uncontested airspace to well above the levels that are deemed to be critical from this current eruption is not 'scientific' evidence. As responsible professionals we should be questioning whether it is commercial pressure being placed on governments to ignore the advice from their scientists.

Aside from the breathless enthusiasts and a few spotters craning their necks and ears to the skies for the sound of a jet engine overhead, the rest of us are debating the rights and/or wrongs of the current decision making over this issue. Haven't we had enough from the "we can't see it therefore there is no problem" brigades?