Posted on 04/18/2010 1:16:57 AM PDT by saganite
KLM, the Dutch subsidiary of Air France, says it has flown a plane through the cloud of volcanic ash covering Europe without suffering any damage.
KLM carried out a test flight above Dutch air space Saturday. It says initial inspections afterward showed no damage or irregularities from the ash in the air that has led to a ban on air travel over much of Europe since Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
At the rate they were losing money, sooner or later it was going to be worth their while to do their own testing with a real plane and real ash clouds.
I read a theory that all of this was to give world leaders an excuse not to attend the funerals in Poland - many heads of state have cancelled because of it, including the US.
Perhaps a stupid question:
Can’t they put some kind of fine screening on the front of the engines?
A screen would have to be like silk and that would not allow sufficient airflow to keep the engines running.
No. That would restrict airflow to the engines and the screen would have to be extremely fine to capture the dust particles not to mention it would be sucked into the engine itself under high power. Even if it were possible though it wouldn’t be economically feasible. Volcanic eruptions have never impacted air travel to this extent. Usually airlines can just route around the ash cloud. This is a once in a century type deal.
Sorry, I haven’t been following the story until now.
Is it “once in a century” simply due to the congested nature of the geographic area beneath the cloud?
So I’m just a bit curious, who’s gonna get the blame when a KLM or Lufthansa 747 falls out of the sky due to a quadruple flame out because the engines are clogged up with volcanic particulate so fine that it may not even be visible to the human eye as you are flying through it.
It don’t show up on RADAR because it contains no water and it builds up slowly.
50 North 40 West is no place to have all four GE’s stop converting jet fuel into noise...
That’s just my phrase but yes, the eruption could not have occurred in a worse spot. Not only has it shut down International flights to and from Europe because those routes are right in the path of the cloud (although I think some of the southern routes across the Atlantic are still open) but it has shut down pretty much all air traffic in Europe. It’s had an almost 9-11 types impact on European and International (US to Europe and return) flying.
Unless the authorities agree to open the airspace this test won’t mean a thing. I don’t expect them to either because of what you just speculated. No bureaucrat wants to take responsibility for that.
Unless the authorities agree to open the airspace this test won’t mean a thing. I don’t expect them to either because of what you just speculated. No bureaucrat wants to take responsibility for that.
Do you have an earlier map to compare this one to. Am interested in how fast it is spreading.
they tested with one plane and one flight?
try this link. There you can exactly watch the timeline.
http://www.zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php?seite=1&artikel=ZAMG_2010-04-17GMT06:52
I would think that would be sufficient but they plan to try and move 7 more today on ferry flights. I’m sure those will get a thorough inspecton too.
That’s a great video. I see something there I didn’t expect and that is that the ash has been picked up by a southerly flow after drifting down into France and is now heading for the eastern coast of Canada.
Test flights raise hope for European air traffic
...but Dutch and German test flights carried out without apparent damage...
I thought that the use of the word apparent was interesting.
Brace for impact
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