So was the flying ban the right thing to do?

[Terbinator]

The invisible ash plume is still dangerous though (?) more so if you can't see it to avoid it ?

[Kata]

as a avionics student, fully justified.....

looking at the picks off that F16, man i dont want to be in a plane right now. And as regarding test flights, how long didnt they stay in the air for? compared to the expected flight time off the route? and also when they fly a certain route they are moving. where as circling the same spot for hours proves nothing for me.

So you're an avionics student, not a thermodynamics student? Seems irrelevant to the internal workings of a jet engine, then...

I'm not sure what a "pick" is, but I assume you mean pictures. Jet fighters fly at rather different speeds, with rather different engine properties, than commercial jets; I'd say a comparison is of limited value.

How long "didn't" they stay in the air? I'd be more interested in how long they DID stay in the air; and it was longer than most internal European flights, and longer than a long-haul flight would be in the ash zone for. Further, I'd expect them to spend very little flight time "off the route" - they generally try and stay ON the route.

As for your last point; you do realise that a plane has to move through the air in order to fly, don't you? Assuming the ash concentrations are representative, it makes zero difference whether the plane circles in one area of ash, or flies in a line through the same concentration of ash. The tests were carried out in the most affected areas; therefore, they were exposed to more ash than a typical flight up and out of the zone would have been.

[Kata]

The invisible ash plume is still dangerous though (?) more so if you can't see it to avoid it ?

Aircraft fly through airbourne contaminents, including volcanic ash, every day of the week, everywhere in the world. They operate successully in and out of the Middle East, in blowing sand storms. There is no such thing as totally pure air. They don't fall out of the sky!

Mount St Helens put 10s of times more ash into the air than this volcano is doing, and it stayed there for months. The effect? Precisely zero.

[Georgy291]

i just realised the amount off typos i had in that post. I think i been revising way too much math.

and i dont think doing avionics is completely irrelevant to jet engines, after all were the ones who control them.

[Saracen]

What you need to realise is that this is not the only Volcano in the world. Other regions deal with this issue on a daily basis, and do so by re-routing aircraft away from the plume itself, and otherwise they get on with life as normal. ....

On the subject of other volcanos, the Icelandic President pointed out on Newsnight yesterday that there is another much larger one that they've been waiting to blow for some years. Apparently, it goes about every 100 years .... and the last time was 1918, so it's coming due. And, of course, last time, it blew, aircraft were rare, and neither commercial airlines nor jet engines existed.

Our current problem appears to be at least in part a stable and persistent cyclonic weather system, but the message is clear - this might be the first time such an event has closed our airspace for a protracted period, but it very well may not be the last ... or worst.

What was seen as a remote risk (of the event occurring) is no longer going to be seen as such, so a lot more work needs to be done in monitoring ash cloud movement, and perhaps in avoiding this scale disruption next time. Maybe that involves greater accuracy in mapping, or in engine modification (if such is possible). But it needs to get much greater priority.

Having said all that, and with due deference to and regret for the unpleasantness, disruption and cost those caught up in this have suffered, I have to say round here it's been utterly delightful. I'm not that far off a flight corridor, for a pretty busy airport and I've lost count of how many times I've been woken up by low-flying aircraft even at 3AM or 4AM. I wasn't planning on flying, and I am therefore a bit smug and most certainly not missing all the flaming racket the planes make.

[Kata]

and i dont think doing avionics is completely irrelevant to jet engines, after all were the ones who control them.

Out of interest (as I genuinely don't have much knowledge on the subject), what study of engines, and interaction with them, do you do as an avionics technician? Is it just a case of hooking up sensors that are pre-installed by the manufacturer, or do you go into the theory and practicalities of internal engine instrumentation and sensors?

[Kata]

I'm not that far off a flight corridor, for a pretty busy airport and I've lost count of how many times I've been woken up by low-flying aircraft even at 3AM or 4AM. I wasn't planning on flying, and I am therefore a bit smug and most certainly not missing all the flaming racket the planes make.

Ah, but who was there first - you or the airport?

(I'm only playing around by the way, I realise you're not the type of person to go for the NIMBY move of moving next to an airport, then complaining it's there and trying to shut it down )

[aeonf242]

If the banks got huge payouts, I personally see no problem with the same for airlines; they are just as important for some of our daily lives.

Personally I'd disagree...I mean if BA can afford to have more than 50% of it's flights grounded for 7 days during a strike it refused to resolve...then the fact it's got the begging bowl after 5 days is just tosh.....

[Saracen]

....

Mount St Helens put 10s of times more ash into the air than this volcano is doing, and it stayed there for months. The effect? Precisely zero.

Mount St Helens was a different type of event, though. It was a much short event. It blew the lid clean off and the eruption itself only lasted, according to the reports I found , a few hours. It didn't rumble on, erupting more or less continuously for days. It did, apparently, have effects on air traffic, closing it in several locations, but the ash (as a non-glacial volcano) was different, heavier (apparently) so it settled more quickly, and wasn't being continuously topped up by fresh eruptions. Also, different geography and different weather patterns meant very different dispersal levels.

I'm not a vulcanologist or a meteorologist, so I can only presume that those that are, and that know what they're talking about are right when they talk about the differences, but presumably, they assess what they're seeing and advise on risk accordingly.

[Saracen]

Ah, but who was there first - you or the airport?

(I'm only playing around by the way, I realise you're not the type of person to go for the NIMBY move of moving next to an airport, then complaining it's there and trying to shut it down )

Well, put that in terms of who was here first, me or the current flight paths ... and I was. They changed them after I bought the place, and the noise got a lot worse. Had the flight paths been what they now are, I would not have bought here.

[Kata]

Personally I'd disagree...I mean if BA can afford to have more than 50% of it's flights grounded for 7 days during a strike it refused to resolve...then the fact it's got the begging bowl after 5 days is just tosh.....

Ah, but BA flew the majority of it's flights then; 50% of revenue was not grounded. They quote lost earnings of 7 million per day for the strike. You also ignore the fact that the strike was recently; they absorbed those costs already, depleting reserves, and NOW they are hit by this; with a daily loss rate of far, far higher amounts given that all their hubs are shut down.

[Kata]

Mount St Helens was a different type of event, though. It was a much short event. It blew the lid clean off and the eruption itself only lasted, according to the reports I found , a few hours. It didn't rumble on, erupting more or less continuously for days. It did, apparently, have effects on air traffic, closing it in several locations, but the ash (as a non-glacial volcano) was different, heavier (apparently) so it settled more quickly, and wasn't being continuously topped up by fresh eruptions. Also, different geography and different weather patterns meant very different dispersal levels.

I'm not a vulcanologist or a meteorologist, so I can only presume that those that are, and that know what they're talking about are right when they talk about the differences, but presumably, they assess what they're seeing and advise on risk accordingly.

Ok, so lets add Mt Etna, Mt Pinatubo, and 100 others around the globe; all erupting at times, pumping ash into the air. The point I was making is that airliners fly in volcanic ash all day every day, with no problems.

The data we are missing is what CONCENTRATION of ash is harmful; the authorities should have been researching this from the second the ban started, and they have been sitting around with their thumbs up their behinds for far too long. The rest of the world has been dealing successfully with this kind of thing for years, on the assumption that if the concentration is too low to be seen or the effects felt, then its not an issue; the problem is that we have to deal with European gold-plated regulation that adds nothing to safety.

The aviation regulation authorities have been making inept decisions for decades; another one is no surprise.

[peterb]

If the banks got huge payouts, I personally see no problem with the same for airlines; they are just as important for some of our daily lives.

As I posted earlier...

The ICAO could lift the ban, but then would Insurance companies start declining cover to airlines (and passengers) who flew while the debris was in the atmosphere - and would the airlines expect compensation from the insurance companies?

And the airlines' operating costs are lower while the aircraft are not flying. True, they still have fixed costs.

Perhaps they should look to diversifying into video conferencing though, as I'm sure VC service providers are rubbing their hands with glee!

[Lucio]

At the end of the day, do any of us really have the knowledge and the guts to gamble with the lives of a plane full of people? This is in my opinion what it comes down to, no one wants to take the risk with those people's lives.

[MaddAussie]

I've just had a chat with my dad who used to work on jet engines (hes retired now but used to work doing overhauling and maintenance of both Mil and Civ engines) and he said there was no way that he'd be flying anywhere near any ash cloud. The tolerances are so fine in parts that it just not worth the risk.

Good enough for me I think

[Perfectionist]

As I posted earlier:

Personally, I'm disgusted by the airlines attitude. They seem to think that a test flight or two is grounds for removing the ban. Perhaps some of these executives would care to try sticking one live round in the chamber of a 6-shot revolver, pointing it at their heads and pulling the trigger. If you get away with wit once or twice, or twenty or thirty times, it doesn't mean it's a safe thing to do. It just means you've been lucky for far.

That's pretty much what the whole of mass-market commercial air flight is based upon tho. You're f/d if anything happens and they know it, despite the BS leaflet propaganda they give out on flights.

What it comes down to is people are happy to take the risk with their lives by going in a plane with a bunch of strangers flown by another stranger, without any precautions that would have any effect whatsoever. heh.

(such as, I don't know. PARACHUTES and a licence saying you are trained required to be a passenger? Oh no that would mean possibly less people flying than those that are safe to do so. The priority is getting as many human bodies crammed like sardines in the metal coffin as poss.)