Icelandic Volcanic Eruption - Significant Disruption to UK Flights

Le_Petit_Lapin

Le_Petit_Lapin

Le_Petit_Lapin

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Just in from having a gander at the sunset on the way home from work. Its simply awesome!

You can see right across the Lough in the middle of N.Ireland to the Sperrin Mountains and the sun was a great big red ball (you know, exactly like you see in the documentaries about Africa) setting behind them. Breathtaking stuff. Bring me more ash please Iceland!

Unfortunately the only camera I had to had was the wee one in my n900, so I dont much fancy getting anything worth keeping out of that.

Edit: Yep, all pictures junk. :(
 
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Radiation

Radiation

Radiation

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Why were those few planes flying around when they couldn't land before?

Im guessing they were taking a chance that the ban was soon to be lifted or something?
 

Vampire

Vampire

Vampire

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BAW284, BAW84 and BAW74 all still holding, guess they're going to try and hold out for Heathrow opening at 22:00.

I wonder how long they can keep waiting before they have to divert?
 

Selekt0r

Selekt0r

Selekt0r

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scorza said:
All UK airports to open tonight at 22:00. I *really* hope that this is safe. I wouldn't want to be on the first few planes.
Click to expand...

Snow-Munki said:
Eshk ! My flight is tomorrow at 1pm !!!
Click to expand...

It's not the first few flights you need to worry about, it's probably the flights which take place after a few hundred hours of flying through the gunk up there.

Interesting report of damage to a NASA plane's engines in 2000 as a result of flying through a diffuse ash cloud.

http://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/volcanicash/03_NASADC8AshDamage.pdf

SUMMARY

In the early morning hours of February 28, 2000, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) DC-8 Airborne Sciences research airplane inadvertently flew through a diffuse plume of volcanic ash from the Mt. Hekla volcano. There were no indications to the flight crew, but sensitive onboard instruments detected the 35-hr-old ash plume. Upon landing there was no visible damage to the airplane or engine first-stage fan blades; later borescope inspection of the engines revealed clogged turbine cooling air passages. The engines were removed and overhauled at a cost of $3.2 million. Satellite data analysis of the volcanic ash plume trajectory indicated the ash plume had been transported further north than predicted by atmospheric effects. Analysis of the ash particles collected in cabin air heat exchanger filters showed strong evidence of volcanic ash, most of which may have been ice-coated (and therefore less damaging to the airplane) at the time of the encounter. Engine operating temperatures at the time of the encounter were sufficiently high to cause melting and fusing of ash on and inside high-pressure turbine blade cooling passages. There was no evidence of engine damage in the engine trending results, but some of the turbine blades had been operating partially uncooled and may have had a remaining lifetime of as little as 100 hr. There are currently no fully reliable methods available to flight crews to detect the presence of a diffuse, yet potentially damaging volcanic ash cloud.
 
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