The Volcano – my impressions
Just thought I would put a quick article out on the great Volcano! A topic I am well acquainted with being as I am currently in Bahrain; I must add that even though I am waiting for a return flight I am in a far more favourable position than the vast majority of other people trying to get to Europe, I can anticipate another visit to BAhrain and continue to work. I have been an avid viewer of all the various news sources, both offical and un-official. I have been impressed with the speed and responsiveness of the social media sites, particularly Twitter.
Reading about volcanos, and I am an aeronautical engineer by training and qualification, where safety is always my first priority! I have tried to do some simple calculations based on data provided; it appears that there has been a cubic kilometre of debris expelled into the atmosphere, and that it has dispersed over an enormus range, in simplistic terms multiplying the surface area by 10 km, the altitude that the ash is reaching and and then dividing the ash volume released, the volume of ash per volume of airspace becomes tiny. One dived by hundreds of thousand is a very small number! I fully accept that there will be areas that will have concentrations above and below this average, however, the authiorities must find a method of finding those areas of lower ash concentration. I was astounded to read today that there is no agreed ppm standard for these occasions providing operators with go/no-go standards. Aircraft navigation systems can be programmed to follow any route, intermediate truning points can be entered to ensure the aircraft avoid areas of higher ash concentrations, these can be updated in flight by the press of a few keys.
It is about time that a risk management strategy was applied, every other aspect of aviation is managed through risk management techniques and that the current sledge hammer to crack a walnut approach by the politicians was altered.
I look forward to your thoughts as always!
Just when we thought all unseen events had been catered for, yet another incident disrupts an entire industry and generates a game changing moment.
I would guess that any manufacturer of atmospheric sensors that can integrate with an aircraft’s decision support systems will be rubbing their hands right now. There might be quite a high demand for some retrofit certification.
Safe trip back from Bahrain – though I suspect your stay will be extended a few more days yet.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Craig McGill and Murray Cox, topsy_top20k. topsy_top20k said: http://bit.ly/bk5ot3 An aircraft engineer/consultant stuck in Bahrain blogs about the volcano – full disclosure – he's my big bro
[...]
Paul
I agree with your thoughts, what will be required initially is a standard from the OEMs and other stakeholders about was is and is not an accpetable concentration to enable system calibration etc. That standard should address, particulate size, shape, composition and concentration, once that is in place, the rest is “simple” engineering and certification!
This episode has shown how risk averse governments and regulatory authorities have become, at present the risk is zero, because nobody is flying. Twenty to thirty flights out of 30-40 000 is small enough not to count.
Malcolm
I could tell you some stuff about all of this and once it blows over (literally) I will do….I’ve spent several hours on the phone with GE and CFM these past days on the topic of how much ash = how much engine performance degradation.
You have to boil it down to an ROI type analysis – how much do we invest in ‘protecting’ ourselves against ash vs. how much this will cost us (bearing in mind that as far as I am aware it is a one-off in the history of european aviation). My guess is that the kit to measure what we are dealing with and the R&D needed to make it all happen and then sustainable on an ongoing basis would be a big cost……
And then you have to figure out a way of simulating the effects of ash on an airframe and engines in a meaningful test environment – given that ‘ash’ comes in many forms. As an example….could you create equipment that recreated a very fine atmospheric ‘mist’ of ash and then run an engine in it for thousands of hours?
In teh days of the wright brothers people were prepared to die for aviation….but I don’t think they are anymore. Safety is our No 1 priority and when you are dealing with an unknown then there is no choice but to take the safe option.
Now our job is to use our clever engineering brains to find a value for money solution to this so we are covered in the future. Or maybe the weather will change and we’ll just forget all about it…..!
Next time you go to Iceland make sure you bring back some bags of volcano dust and then you can sell it to GE for use in their test cell. You can also go to Iceland and get some frozen chickens to use for Birdstrike testing. Not the same Iceland though.
Gary
I assume that your “test” flts went well, can you share the results of the post flt investigations? I would be interested to understand the findings, there are some reports on the web that a Thomas Cook aircraft suffered a loss of bleed air with a smell of sulpher in the cabin, coincidence? I would think that a lot of bleed air/ECS snags will be attributed to the volcano for the short-term.
Malcolm
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later