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I wonder if they will let people know what the chances are of a full engine malfunction during their flights...

The manufacturers don't guarantee the safety of the engines through volcanic ash clouds..... that's enough surely???

Certainly sounds a little foolhardy. I assume they'd have to inspect after each flight. And if NATS allow it, does this mean that everyone will be suing them for unnecessary disruption.

I wonder if it's all the same people?

You know - the ones who turn up at the Channel Tunnel termini when the tunnel's blocked, the ones who turn up at railway stations in the middle of a rail strike, and the ones who want to fly in a jet aircraft through a volcanic dust cloud.

Now maybe if we dug a very deep hole and offered rapid transit to Australia ...

Mike

You really wouldn't want to be the pilot drawing the short straw for one of those flights, would you?

The Riff-Raff Element wrote:Certainly sounds a little foolhardy. I assume they'd have to inspect after each flight. And if NATS allow it, does this mean that everyone will be suing them for unnecessary disruption.

My thoughts exactly. Surely there would be some kind of cumilative effect from the same plane being flown throughout the day, in different areas - they surely can't inspect the planes thoroughly after each trip without experiencing the kinds of delay they are already experiencing?

From what I understand (and I'm no scientist, so excuse any ignorance), initially the volcano has been throwing out basalt. You know, good for the garden, and that. If it does what the scientists (who DON'T want the planes taking off) THINK is going to happen, based on past research, it's going to start spewing out silicon, which is a different kettle of volcanic fish altogether. So just because it is 'safe' (mmmm, suddenly safe because of money) now doesn't mean it will be safe tomorrow. The volcano is currently spewing out 'blasts' of stuff ('stuff' being a very scientific term, you know), rather than one continous stream which leads them to think that the structure of the ash is changing, therefore the density, coverage and damage could change too, so surely any test plane's conclusions are only valid for that very specific time they were in the air, factoring in wind-changes, changes to the structure of the ash, density, atmospheric pressure etc. It's the Heraclitan Doctrine of Flux - the passenger jets would not be flying through exactly the same conditons as the test flight....

citizentwiglet wrote:You really wouldn't want to be the pilot drawing the short straw for one of those flights, would you?

I was thinking more along the lines of just telling 'em to jump.

Mike

Sorry top be opposing the lot of you for once, but i wish they'd allow flights through. I want the ash to clear!

THis is for two reasons:

1. Mat's parents are still f**king here...they should have left a week ago. He's another foreign teacher and his parents just want to talk politics and show off how much money they have all the time.

2. My dad's supposed to be coming over next week. I miss my dad!

So, please, whoever is in charge of volcanos...let my daddy get here and home safely! Oh...and send Mat's parents home...don't care how!

Also...i'm coming home in June/July, so i'd l;ike it to be clear then too, i can't afford the trans-siberian express!

Maybe the pilot and crew should bourd the plane wearing parachutes....then see who wants to fly

citizentwiglet wrote: It's the Heraclitan Doctrine of Flux - the passenger jets would not be flying through exactly the same conditons as the test flight....

Oh yes. Still, the authorities seem to have caved in now, so I suppose we'll just have to see.

And bananas do still come by ship.

marshlander wrote:And bananas do still come by ship.

And some bananas are European in origin. OK, they come from that part of France which is also a Caribbean island, but it is in the EU.

Gordon Brown was on the news last night and was trying to call it a 'huge travel crisis' or something, but started off calling it a 'huge financial crisis' by mistake and stopped himself. The Fee Fairy, I hope things are ok for your dad. Tell Mat's parents you are an anarcho-syndicalist and that might stop them wanting to talk politics with you (I'm not sure I know what it means and I bet they won't either, but I don't think it's anything nasty!)

My brother-in-law is an anarcho-syndicalist! He lives in a commune in Germany. Basically, the commune doesn't have a leader, but every week they have a meeting of every adult member (about 70 at the moment) with the chair revolving around every single member a week at a time. It seems to work - they've been going for over forty years, quite successfully.

Eigon wrote:My brother-in-law is an anarcho-syndicalist! He lives in a commune in Germany. Basically, the commune doesn't have a leader, but every week they have a meeting of every adult member (about 70 at the moment) with the chair revolving around every single member a week at a time. It seems to work - they've been going for over forty years, quite successfully.

......... and the link to air travel is ????????

Also has anyone found any links to the positive [ or negative] effect on the environment from the lack of air flight over the last few days? By environment I mean the grean living planet type environment not the ecconomic, I'm a big business who has to screw the punter to make massive proffits type environment

BA

Big Al wrote: ......... and the link to air travel is ????????

It was a reply to me Eigon that is very interesting, and especially heartening that it works well! This is off topic but: I used to work in the voluntary sector and I'm always interested in small-scale collective decision making processes and how people get on with them in practice.

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