The cat did it

[Dave W]

How to name a volcano 

[Chris P.]

Utterly brilliant!

I saw an item on Dutch tv. The edited news readers from all over the world together, pronouncing the volcano in different ways:)

[Highlander]

We had a clear blue sky patch over London this week, the when they gave the all clear, I noticed all the cloud I could see in the sky that morning was in straight lines, these became wider and more sky filling as more and more aircraft went over...

By mid afternoon we had major cloud cover...

Global warming...?  Bah... Humbug...

[Pilgrim]

About that volcano and the ash....I was one of those living in Washington state when Mt. St. Helens blew in 1980.  That ash is VERY nasty stuff.  Flying a jet engine through it would be about the same as flying through a cloud of emery dust which would then attack every moving surface.  I would not want to be in a jet that flew through an ash cloud of any density - nor would I want to pay for the repairs even if the engines didn't have problems in the short term.

[Highlander]

An eruption in the Phillipines in 1991 caused a problem for this DC10, which fell over...


a link showing a damaged turbine...
http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/jma-eng/jma-center/vaac/typical%20damage.htm

[uwe]

While airlines were moaning in Europe about the forced grounding, NATO did send up an F-16 which hit an ash cloud and got back severely damaged. The brass felt motivated to say that the grounding for civil aircraft was well-founded.

[Highlander]

Finnish Air Force, iirc

[Barklessdog]

NATO did send up an F-16 which hit an ash cloud and got back severely damaged.

I read somewhere that F-16's are the reputation of Starfighters (not quite that bad). Pretty much a fair weather fighter. Single engine does not help either. They are not known for they're gliding abilities.

[Highlander]

Mind you, John, there are not many modern "unstables" that can... 

I guess they're like bumble-bees...