The Anonymous Widower

Can We Fly Round the Volcanic Cloud?

I’ve never flown an airliner, but I have flown over a 1,000 hours in small aircraft.

So let’s put in a few stories.

  • I have flown to Cardiff airport many times and several times when I have been there, British Airways have been doing circuits and practice landings and take-offs in a 747.
  • I once flew into Dulles airport on a very quiet Sunday and the pilot did a short approach turning on to finals at just a few hundred feet.
  • I read a safety report about a pilot who ditched and had his MayDay call answered by a TWA 747.  It then did steep turns at a few hundred feet to mark his life-raft.

So contrary to what you may think, big aircraft like 747s and Airbus 330/340/380 are not lumbering giants, but very manoeuvrable aircraft that can fly happily at lower levels.  It doesn’t do too much for their fuel consumption though. 

Now the volcanic cloud is generally above 3,000 feet, so could we not fly to Spain, which is open?  It would need to be  in Visual Flight Rules, but it would surely be possible to create an airbridge to say Madrid.  Most of the flight would be over water and it should not be difficult to create a low-level airway.

Why has there been so little talk of doing this?

There was one article in the Daily Mail. Read it!

April 19, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

Some People are Winning

There are about 150,000 Brits abroad, who can’t get home because of the flights.  There are also an awful lot of Europeans stuck here.  When I was at the services at Stansted yesterday, there was a couple of girls with a plaintiff sign asking for a lift to Germany.  We will start to here a lot of hardship stories, as the ones who’ve made it home are the ones with money.

A friend of mine was stuck in Cologne with his car at Stansted.  He got charged £65 as a foot passenger on a ferry at Calais.

It will be interesting to see, what sort of profits the ferries and Eurostar make this year.

But seriously, we must start to find a solution to the problem of Icelandic ash.

April 19, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

The Airlines are Revolting

Some airlines like KLM and Lufthansa have been flight testing in the volcanic ash.  According to the BBC, results seem promising.

Let’s hope so.

April 18, 2010 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

A Real Heroic Story

Britain are not noted to be great at ice hockey, but they at least qualified for the World Championships in Slovakia.

However, they then found that they couldn’t get there because of the Icelandic volcano.  But here in the UK, we’re don’t let a little dust get in our plans, so they took a coach all the way. This is from the BBC.

Great Britain won their opening game in Group B of Division One at ice hockey’s World Championships, beating Croatia.

GB made a 26-hour bus journey to hosts Slovenia after the Icelandic volcanic eruption cancelled their flight, arriving two hours before face-off.

Well done to the team and they showed that we must just get on with it. 

Rumour has it, that the team have decided to sleep in the bus!

April 18, 2010 Posted by | Sport, Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

I Wish I Still Had Delta-Delta

Delta-Delta was my Cessna 340A.  This was a six seater twin piston engined aircraft.  So could I still fly the aircraft with all this volcanic dust about.  There is a good technical article called How Volcanic Ash Threatens Aircraft  in New Scientist, which explains all the problems very well.

Volcanic ash is composed of particles of glassy pulverised rock less than 2 millimetres in diameter. When an aircraft flies into it at its high cruising speed, the cockpit windows get a sandblasting, obscuring the pilots’ view. Crucially, though, the engines suck the dust in, where it melts in the hot combustion chamber and fuses to form globs on the turbine vanes that block the engine airflow. Only when it cools and solidifies – as the aircraft plummets engineless – can enough of the muck flake off to allow an engine restart.

So that convinces me as an ex-pilot with over a 1,000 hours on the clock, that the authorities are not being over cautious.

But it is this comment on the article that is interesting.

There isn’t a blanket ban on flying in the UK. AIUI, NATS has closed controlled airspace. You are allowed to fly outside controlled airspace, and planes can fly ‘VFR’ (Visual Flight Rules) which are more restrictive than ‘IFR’ (Instrument Flight Rules) (eg for VFR you have to fly slower, and within sight of the ground). For IFR you have to be in touch with air traffic control, for VFR you don’t (as long as you are outside controlled airspace), you just do your own thing.

So, a Cessna can probably fly fine under VFR at the moment, while a 747 can’t. Similarly, gliders, paragliders will all be fine, since they always fly VFR, and rarely go into controlled airspace.

Theoretically, I suppose, something like a 737 could fly VFR within the UK (they have been known to if controlled airspace is busy), but would have to land at airfields outside of controlled airspace, and there aren’t many of those big enough to take that size of plane.

Also, a jet engine is much more susceptible to problems from ash than a (non-turbo) prop plane is.

A light aircraft prop engine has pretty much just a (very powerful) engine with the same technology as a car, so it has air filters which will protect it from dust (as long as you don’t overuse the ‘carb heat’ function), and light aircraft don’t go fast enough for dust to have a significant abrasive effect.

So Delta-Delta could fly VFR at least in the UK.  The last point is the most important.  A piston-engined aircraft should be protected from dust ingestion.

Whether I could rescue all my mates stuck in foreign parts, I do not know.  It would just depend on the rules on the continent.

April 17, 2010 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel | , | 1 Comment

Manchester to Australia

Just watching the Manchester City/United Derby on Sky.

The pitchside advertising says fly from Manchester to Australia on Etihad Airways.

You could be so lucky at the moment.

April 17, 2010 Posted by | Sport, Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Advice to a Friend

Whilst at the races I phoned a friend to see if he was at Newmarket.  He wasn’t because he was in Tenerife on holiday.

When I got home, I felt I ought to send him a text to keep him up-to-date on the situation with the flights.  He knows that I used to fly a lot and I’d flown with him several times, so he would have thought I could have a bit more information.  So this is what I said.

I wasn’t on the ball this afternoon.  You’re in Tenerife and the planes aren’t flying. So I rang an old flying friend at Heathrow Air Traffic and asked him what he thought.  He reckons that the weather is stuck and the volcano will get worse and planes are unlikely to fly to the UK for at least 14 days. Phone for more details.

I think he swallowed it.  At least he phoned friends at home and told them he’d be back late.

I hope that I didn’t get the 14 days right.

April 16, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

    Next Entries »