That Volcano!!!!!!!

[coptermanic]

So, who has been/is being/will be affected by the eruptions?

Me, I am stuck in Shanghai, where I have been since Monday. Starting to wear thin, and getting fed up with TsingTao beer!!!!

[Smoothound]

Mate of mine is sitting up at Heathrow waiting to go to Florida. He's not too impressed it's his first holiday for 5 years or so :(

[trvo]

I've been affected as there's loads of volcano posts to read on the forum. ;)

Hope you can get home soon.

Trev

[Gav]

Stuck in Sweden myself. Just went to the central station and its swamped with people all trying to get home - all trains are full for at least 2 days so I am sitting it out in Stockholm till the aiports open again.

quick check on the internet then off out for some sight seeing and already spyed a decent model heli shop in the centre to visit.

feel sorry for those whos holidays have been messed up.

Mike - what would actually happen if one of your turbines sucked up some volcanic ash - would it really conk out?

Have they done a test with a turbine test rig and someone sprinkling ash out of a bag to see what happens when it gets sucked in?? lol

bit of a mega decision to shut all those airports - going to cost a bit!!

[Tom Burgess]

[quote=coptermanic;459462]So, who has been/is being/will be affected by the eruptions?

Me, I am stuck in Shanghai, where I have been since Monday. Starting to wear thin, and getting fed up with TsingTao beer!!!![/quote]

Blimey Mike, that's no good. Where is the edge of the zone that you cannot get an IFR clearance into?

[Tom Burgess]

[quote=Gav;459475]

Mike - what would actually happen if one of your turbines sucked up some volcanic ash - would it really conk out?

[/quote]

St Elmo's fire :D

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9]British Airways Flight 9 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]

[pchristy]

Good link! I knew aboutthat incident, but there's some good detail there!

Volcanic ash is EXTREMELY abrasive...

--
Pete

[Janek]

I'm no airline pilot, but I've flown on more than my share, surely they could just fly low.

The ash is at high altitude, therefore why can't they just fly below it ?, would work for short haul at least, and even long haul, because they just climb when in clear air. (OK, maybe they have to re-route trans-atlantic traffic, so as not to overfly Iceland itself.

The airlines would have greater fuel cost, but they would lose less that grounding all flights.

I'm supposed to be in Hamburg all week, flying out on Monday morning from LHR, fingers crossed......mind you, it's work, so I don't give a sh1te really :)

[trillian]

I would have been in Majorca right now. I had a flight yesterday. It was going to be a long weekend thing and back Tuesday but I'll just do it another time.

The consolation is I get to take advantage of the nice weather forecasted for this weekend here.

[Tom Burgess]

It's not that high any more, more like 18,000ft I believe. That will be the majority of it but it wont be in a layer, more likely spread over many flight levels.

[quote=Janek;459487]I'm no airline pilot, but I've flown on more than my share, surely they could just fly low.

The ash is at high altitude, therefore why can't they just fly below it ?, would work for short haul at least, and even long haul, because they just climb when in clear air. (OK, maybe they have to re-route trans-atlantic traffic, so as not to overfly Iceland itself.

The airlines would have greater fuel cost, but they would lose less that grounding all flights.

I'm supposed to be in Hamburg all week, flying out on Monday morning from LHR, fingers crossed......mind you, it's work, so I don't give a sh1te really :)[/quote]

[pchristy]

Jet engines only work economically at high altitude. I doubt a 747 could carry enough fuel to cross the Atlantic at 10.000ft, and carry a payload as well!

The other problem is that there won't be a sharp boundary to the ash layer, so it would be difficult to tell when you were getting into the danger zone!

Personally, I'd rather be stuck in an airport departure lounge than plunging thousands of feet with no engines....!

--
Pete

[coptermanic]

The ash will damage the engine internally as it is extremely abrasive - like sandpaper. So operating the jet through the cloud will be a cost assessment as well as a risk assessment.
There are procedures now to deal with multiple engine run-downs, and even if the engine flames out, the denser air at lower altitudes will allow re-starts:). Hopefully. But who wants to take that risk with 250 - 300 passengers, a $200M aircraft, and potentially horrendous collateral damage???:ack2:

[Adrian]

I just spoke to a friend in portugal ,he was suposed to be home last night but theres rumours that theres such a back log he looking at wednesdy to be flown home:ack2: ....

[mattydred]

my 5 year old boy is in tenerife with my mum and due to fly back on sunday.

[Adrian]

This could go on and off for a fair few months yet if that volcano dont settle down,just hope its not happening in june when i fly out