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?