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Volcano Futures
Now that the volcanic ash cloud is easing off from Europe and airports are re-opening, it's time to look ahead a bit. The first question is, will the Eyjafjallajökull (.OGG) volcano's ash cloud visit the US? According to Discovery News, the answer is: not likely. This article also provides good current answers, as best scientists know, to other questions such as "How long will this volcano keep erupting?" (could be months), and "Will the ash cloud cause cooling in Europe?" (nope). New Scientist looks at the question of whether planes can fly safely through volcanic ash clouds — and concludes there's a lot we don't know. "Ever since a Boeing 747 temporarily lost all four engines in an ash cloud in 1982, the International Civil Aviation Organization has stipulated that skies must be closed as soon as ash concentration rises above zero. The ICAO's International Airways Volcano Watch uses weather forecasting to predict ash cloud movements, and if any projections intersect a flight path, the route is closed. But although it is certain that volcanic ash like that hanging over northern Europe can melt inside a jet engine and block airflow, nobody has the least idea about just how much is too much. After a week of losing millions every day, airlines are starting to ask why we can't do better."
The rest of the planet uses AAC and MP3, insensitive clod!
Seriously, Vorbis and Theora are not supported by default on either Windows or Mac OS X, so it's really a PITA to use those formats for 99.999% of the users.
Maybe we can't do better because the design of a jet engine is to suck in as much air as possible with tiny blades, compress it, then spit it out at an extremely high temperature that happens to remelt ash?
Oh, so now ICAO is going to profit from a study being done? Maybe they're just going to get some sort of assurance that it's safe to have molten obsidian chillin' in the jet engines of airlines, and can use that against them if they end up killing people for the sake of profit.
I was hoping this was about a new market in futures contracts opening up.
After all, I am strangely colored.
You geeks should probably have a clear concept of how volcanoes work. It's like a gigantic pool of molten sebum seething and swelling just under the surface of the earth. When this sebum reaches a vent or finds a weakness in the skin, it erupts pus and bacteria all over. In some areas, these "pimples" are very common. Many can be found on or near the so-called Ring of Fire.
After erupting, the area is still tender and prone to subsequent eruption, but a treatment of peroxide and salicylic acid can help clear it up and prevent infection.
As I was saying, just because one volcano calms down on one side of the Earth, another volcano may be getting closer to eruption on the other side (Yellowstone). If you think pimples on your face are bad, wait until you get one on your ass.
Anyone else hit Eyjafjallajökull about 15 times?
Every time people ask why we fund the space agencies, here is your answer. The majority of the data we DO have in this situation is from downlooking satellites from ESA and NASA.The The Deep Space Climate Observatory was mothballed for almost a decade and yet it has sensors on it that could be helping significantly with measuring ash density source. There are several other vehicles that can help significantly with this and other problems that cost many, many times the project cost, but all people see is the big number at the end of each budget, not the benefits.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Had they permitted a plane to fly, and it crashed, the outcry of permitting a plane to fly when we knew about the risks posed by volcanic ash...
But this wasn't even volcanic ash, it was volcanic glass, the effect would be sandblasting the engine while in operation. The safe option was to keep planes on the ground.
Fly or stay grounded - either way, whiners will whine.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Is this testable by putting an engine in a wind tunnel, and then testing for damage at various concentrations of ash?
...and IN SOVIET RUSSIA, beowulf clusters imagine 1, 2, 3 profit!!!! jokes made out of YOU!!!
Offtopic like a fox, maybe!
After a week of losing millions every day, airlines are starting to ask why we can't do better.
Tell you what. Let all the bean counters volunteer to get into a jet and fly back and forth through an ash plume until the engines fail and the jet crashes, killing everyone.
THEN ask that stupid fucking question again.
The reason nobody can say is there's no metrics for uptake by a jet and no guarantee that the ash plume is going to be consistent with whatever testbed is set up.
Honestly, losing millions a day? Do they want to invest a couple billion a year (if not a month) into testing every plausible (and some implausible) ash-to-air-to-engine-intake ratio for every commercial jetliner extant?
With various air carriers already cutting finances close to the bone, I don't think they really have the money to spend on this kind of research or on remediation methods and practices for overhauling engines on planes after scenarios like this.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
As many people in the United States with immigrant ancestors know, the government is going to have to naturalise the volcano's name if the ashes pass Ellis Island.
Get ready for Mt. Ekull.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
It seems amazing that we have avoided something like the 1783 eruption that lasted for two years and killed over a hundred thousand. Can you imagine air traffic disrupted for years? BTW, the same thing could happen to us from the Aleutians.
This ash cloud from the Iceland volcano has caused engine damage. I wonder if airlines are throwing caution away to avoid the daily loss in business.
Banu
Volcanoes have nothing to do with global warming. It was all the cavemen driving around in the massive dinosaur guzzling SUVs that ended the last ice age. Everyone knows that.
Honestly, losing millions a day? Do they want to invest a couple billion a year (if not a month) into testing every plausible (and some implausible) ash-to-air-to-engine-intake ratio for every commercial jetliner extant?
I think you're confused about who "they" are.
The airlines have never been in the business of testing anything.
In this case "they" are the engine mfgs &/or the government.
Since the MFGs are saying "don't use our engines under these conditions,"
even if airports weren't shut down, no airline's insurance carrier would cover damage anyways.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Global warming and volcanoes are related.
What's your source for this?
Google. Try it yourself, sometime. It would take about as much time as the post you wrote to get started.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I believe you're right. However, we have a few thousand people trapped here in LA. Unfortunately, neither European rail nor Amtrak have yet built that tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean.
Of course, if we build that bridge across the Bering Strait...
Hmm, it already melted through 100 miles or so of mostly solid rock, so we are going to stop it by putting a few feet or tens of feet skim coat of far weaker material with a lower melting point?
It's not just the airline bean counters who are worried about this. I'm being directly affected. I was in Europe for work, and was supposed to fly back to the US last Sun. I've been stuck here since. I'm quite desperate to get back home and back to my life.
It may seem cool to be stuck in Europe, but in actuality it's not. It feels semi-prison like in that I'm stuck in a place (albeit a very nice, historical and cultural one) and unable to get home. Things are going on at work, with friends, family and I'm all the way over here spending money like crazy because everything costs more when traveling (hotels, meals, phone calls, hotel internet charges, etc). I'm just lucky because I was traveling for work and can expense. I've met others here who aren't so lucky (one forms a sense of camaraderie with other stranded passengers on meets).
And it's a lot of other industries and businesses too. The world is incredibly interconnected.
The main complaint isn't from some bean counters trying to override safety. It's that a blanket ban is just unrealistic and misinformed. There has to be somewhere between NO FLIGHTS and NORMAL. What is it? Are there safe corridors? Are there certain types of planes that can fly? Are there certain elevations? Noone knows, and worse yet, noone is really tracking the ACTUAL ash cloud, it's all just computer models predicting. Let's see where the damned thing actually is.
Those are some of the complaints the airlines, and now us passengers who've been glued to the news for almost a week, are wondering.
The fact that so many flights flew ok yesterday indicates that the whole situation wasn't carefully thought through. Look, I'm all for putting safety first. If there is a good chance I'll die flying, I'll agree to be stuck in Europe for another month until it's safe. But, please can we first make sure it really is that dangerous?
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
From what I can tell via google,
- Ash melts at 1100 degrees, below operating temperature of jet engines, and fuses into the engine
- Windshields can be abraded so badly you cannot see out of them
- Ash is dry and doesn't show up on radar, so new sensors are needed so pilots can discover it
- There are no standards for how much ash is allowed or how to test aircraft against it.
- Possibility that propellor planes and helicopters are safer
So my conclusions for now are:
- Need better rules, and government should pay for the experimentation
- Need better intelligence, so we can be sure a route is safe
- Need to examine flying propellor planes slowly at very low altitudes below the ash
- Nobody has thought about ash bothering ground transportation. Does it?
- Need alternative transportation
o Trains, buses, boats
o Slower aircraft.. hovercraft or balloons? (they still have engines though)
o Need a closed engine design. (chemical or hydrogen powered electric closed engine?)
o This is a common problem, more needs to be done for global transportation security. I even found a volcanic explosion in Japan yesterday at the ash advisory center, though it is not in the news at all.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/svd/vaac/data/TextData/20100420_SAKU_0403_Text.html
Links:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/412103-ash-clouds-threaten-air-traffic.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/volcanic-ash-bad-for-planes
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055888944
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/vaac.html
I think that's unfair. It's more like:
... ...
:).
;).
Airlines: We think its safe[1] to fly our planes NOW!
ICAO: Really? Let's hear from Boeing and Airbus on what levels of ash are safe for their engines. So over to you Airbus and Boeing.
Boeing:
Airbus:
ICAO: Hello? You guys still there?
Boeing+Airbus: Uh hold on while we do a few tests...
There's plenty of evidence why the airlines aren't allowed to make that call
It's the job of the airlines to push the ICAO to let them fly ASAP.
It's the job of the ICAO to not let them fly till they know it is safe enough.
From what I've seen, the pilots and engineers don't think it's that safe. Few pilots want to find out if they're as good and lucky as the ones who did some gliding in Indonesian airspace
[1] They may think that the economic impact to them of nobody flying after X weeks could be greater than one or two plane problems/crashes.
Thanks for posting the link to the Finnish F-18 engine photos. The airborne dust is clearly accreting in molten globs on hot section parts. These mixed oxide/silicate blobs may react with hot section materials - not sure what the specific materials are in the F-18 engines, but they're commonly nickel-based superalloys, often with ceramic thermal barrier coatings. I think the volcanic material might form eutectic (lower melting point) compounds with either the thermal barrier coatings or the underlying alloys. This won't cause outright engine failure, but it could easily lead to accelerated blade or combuster erosion, requiring more frequent maintenance. It will also degrade fuel efficiency. Not such a big impact on military flight operations, as they will have little trouble getting extra funding for this unforseeable circumstance, but the airlines will see additional maintenance requirements eat very quickly into their bottom lines. AFAIK, there's not much of a database on turbine engine degradation modes due to long-term flight through sub-micron volcanic dust.
Gizmodo should really update their article since their source has been forced to recant.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/planes-or-volcano/
(Do note that the graph still doesn't fully reflect their actual text from yesterday's update)
it's in my head