Don't blame me - I don't want a "Europe" or to be any part of it but a bunch of people called politicians are deciding that for me. :( Europe ARE idiots (and I'm sure you are smart enough to know exactly which Europeans I am referring to without thinking I'm referring to all 550 million people???) for thinking you can safely fly through anything resembling sand paper at 500 kts with very precisely built equipment without any repercussions later.Just ask NASA what they think of the idea. They flew a fully equipped 707 through ash, and they had detectors built for the purpose that told them the air they were flying through was clear. A borescope inspection later found they'd destroyed all 4 engines. They sat in Iceland waiting for spares. Needless to say when they flew back they gave the cloud an additional 500 mile clearance on top of the 500 miles they already gave it!Best regards,Robin.

As one of those 550 million people covered by the expression "Europe ARE idiots", and obviously not being one of the ones smart enough to know which bit of Europe you think of as Europe and which bit of Europe you think is not actually Europe and therefore not covered by your insult, I would just like to suggest that you (a) apologise for insulting 550 million people (including me), and (b)check your facts.I suggest you use google to check who made the decisions to close which airports and which airspaces and why as that information is all in the public domain. When you have done that, you can then consider asking, in much more polite terms then you have been using thus far, why certain named airports or airspaces were left open at specific times which, in your opinion, you think should have been closed and please don't forget to mention why you think they should have been closed at those times.

Don't blame me - I don't want a "Europe" or to be any part of it but a bunch of people called politicians are deciding that for me. :( Europe ARE idiots (and I'm sure you are smart enough to know exactly which Europeans I am referring to without thinking I'm referring to all 550 million people???) for thinking you can safely fly through anything resembling sand paper at 500 kts with very precisely built equipment without any repercussions later.Just ask NASA what they think of the idea. They flew a fully equipped 707 through ash, and they had detectors built for the purpose that told them the air they were flying through was clear. A borescope inspection later found they'd destroyed all 4 engines. They sat in Iceland waiting for spares. Needless to say when they flew back they gave the cloud an additional 500 mile clearance on top of the 500 miles they already gave it!Best regards,Robin.

The moderators are very quick to ban regular members when they post hateful and offensive comments like this. He's basically saying that Europe and its people are stupid, inferior and not worthy of anything - "idiots" in fact. Maybe the mods should consider a temp ban?

Back on topic - check this out:http://www.wrh.noaa..../dustStormZ.gifThe haboob shoots out like a shockwave from the storms to the south of Phoenix - pretty amazing.

Wow, that was pretty cool! Looked like there was also a smaller one from the NW moving a little slower than the southern wave.

Wow, that was pretty cool! Looked like there was also a smaller one from the NW moving a little slower than the southern wave.

No, no back to the real topic. I want also put in my two cents. Sorry. Just kidding. Couldn't resist. This thread is a little bit like Big Nose. Life of Brian."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg2GVWHGKY" Enjoy.:(

+1i live 35 km away from EDDF so there are lots of planes flying over my house every day. (4 in the last minutes)Frankfurt airport was closed 2 days after the eruption of the volcano at Iceland.They closed the airport for 4-5 days i think and in this time, things got quiet around Frankfurt airspace.The decision to close the airports (even the bigger ones like EDDF) was made really fast. I think i've read an article in our newspaper that Lufthansa had a loss of 200 million € in these days (could be wrong... don't really know anymore)So please don't call europeans idiots because we send our aircrafts into volcanic dust because actually we didn't do things like this.Regards,

Oh that's funny as I'm pretty much from that area as well (although I live significatly closer to the aerodrome). Those were among the sickest days of my personal aviation life. They went from a maximum of ~120 movements per hour to zero - for days. Certainly made a difference when looking at (and listening to) the sky. Just for the record, there were a couple thousand flights cancelled during that period. Some airlines wanted to fly badly, so some got a special clearance to fly controlled VFR and resume part of their operation after a number of days. On a side note I thought this was interesting, as airliners, as we all know, rarely fly VFR, ehrm. As it's a little impractical to fly VFR the original way like you would do in your C152 on a multi-thousand mile trip involving to cross the seas, what they basically did is just continue to fly their IFR procedures but maintain VMC, and the ATCOs just giving traffic information instead of offering true seperation (that all is 'IIRC' or 'AFAIK' so don't blame me if it's not accurate).The airport was pretty much like a useless ghost city, all the planes parked and packed up. When after a few days the first plane made a roaring noise from the horizon in order to land (which usually happened a couple hundred times a day), I immediately rushed to the balcony to see what it was. Pretty wicked. It took a long time to equip an old Dassault Falcon (guess it was a Falcon 20) with stuff to measure the cloud concentration. The officials were afraid of the ash acting like an abrasive or getting stuck in the engines. OTOH, many airline people though (and pilots) didn't really think it would do any harm...In any way, I certainly won't forget the people standing in front of these tables and taking pictures of that rare occurrence.Especially bad for all those who had to camp at the terminal for days! Think of the movie "The Terminal"... :(

Oh that's funny as I'm pretty much from that area as well (although I live significatly closer to the aerodrome). Those were among the sickest days of my personal aviation life. They went from a maximum of ~120 movements per hour to zero - for days. Certainly made a difference when looking at (and listening to) the sky. Just for the record, there were a couple thousand flights cancelled during that period. Some airlines wanted to fly badly, so some got a special clearance to fly controlled VFR and resume part of their operation after a number of days. On a side note I thought this was interesting, as airliners, as we all know, rarely fly VFR, ehrm. As it's a little impractical to fly VFR the original way like you would do in your C152 on a multi-thousand mile trip involving to cross the seas, what they basically did is just continue to fly their IFR procedures but maintain VMC, and the ATCOs just giving traffic information instead of offering true seperation (that all is 'IIRC' or 'AFAIK' so don't blame me if it's not accurate).The airport was pretty much like a useless ghost city, all the planes parked and packed up. When after a few days the first plane made a roaring noise from the horizon in order to land (which usually happened a couple hundred times a day), I immediately rushed to the balcony to see what it was. Pretty wicked. It took a long time to equip an old Dassault Falcon (guess it was a Falcon 20) with stuff to measure the cloud concentration. The officials were afraid of the ash acting like an abrasive or getting stuck in the engines. OTOH, many airline people though (and pilots) didn't really think it would do any harm...In any way, I certainly won't forget the people standing in front of these tables and taking pictures of that rare occurrence.Especially bad for all those who had to camp at the terminal for days! Think of the movie "The Terminal"... :(

I have some very similar pictures somewhere of inside the terminals at Heathrow - every flight canceled on the screens and the terminals just being empty - the guys in the tower were sat watching movies to pass the time on shift - the ramp was so eerily quiet, absolutely nothing moving, no APU's running - nothing.Unfortunately I still had my old iphone 3G with no video otherwise I'd have filmed it - taking a picture obviously doesn't really give any impression of what it was like. Eventually Heathrow re-opened when BA decided they had had enough and sent seven inbounds, in a move that put pressure on the authorities to re-open the airspace (which worked).

speaking of the European volcano incident I have a story (yay)Few hours before it had happened I was boarding a KLM 747 at Narita. Everything was going so well. I was sleeping on the plane. Then the volcano erupted and the plane had turned back to Narita. I woke up and saw that we had landed. However it was late at night and I thought the plane had been delayed. As I got off when we got to the gate I realized that the jetway was same as the one at Narita and not schiphol. Then a big sign that said "welcome to Narita" I was so confused and when the flight attendant told me what happened I was pretty shocked. I had to go home and my holiday was ruined. The end

I have some very similar pictures somewhere of inside the terminals at Heathrow - every flight canceled on the screens and the terminals just being empty - the guys in the tower were sat watching movies to pass the time on shift - the ramp was so eerily quiet, absolutely nothing moving, no APU's running - nothing.Unfortunately I still had my old iphone 3G with no video otherwise I'd have filmed it - taking a picture obviously doesn't really give any impression of what it was like. Eventually Heathrow re-opened when BA decided they had had enough and sent seven inbounds, in a move that put pressure on the authorities to re-open the airspace (which worked).

How true. You're right, the actual scary part was standing on the visitor's terrace watching all the planes and hearing absolutely - nothing. A picture doesn't exactly get this impression across. Usually the apron is a throbbing organism with all the working people and vehicles, but it was all dead'n'quiet.

speaking of the European volcano incident I have a story (yay)Few hours before it had happened I was boarding a KLM 747 at Narita. Everything was going so well. I was sleeping on the plane. Then the volcano erupted and the plane had turned back to Narita. I woke up and saw that we had landed. However it was late at night and I thought the plane had been delayed. As I got off when we got to the gate I realized that the jetway was same as the one at Narita and not schiphol. Then a big sign that said "welcome to Narita" I was so confused and when the flight attendant told me what happened I was pretty shocked. I had to go home and my holiday was ruined. The end

LOLHope you didn't have to camp at Narita for too long.

LOLHope you didn't have to camp at Narita for too long.

no I live in Japan so I got to go home

no I live in Japan so I got to go home

Ohhh ok didn't know that, even better then. :(

Flying into a sandstorm is like flying into a sand blaster.Europe are idiots for allowing air transport to fly in known areas of volcanic ash. Sure, the engine may not fail on that flight, but you're setting the aircraft up for big problems later. They are doing a fine job of destroying any gains made in reliability.Best regards,Robin.

Do you, as "I'm American and thus better as the rest of thee world guy" actually know anything about Europe? In Europe we have different countries. All of them have different people with different culture... Some cultures may look similair, but if you compare for example The Netherlands and Portugal or Germany and Greece, you will see many differences... Even if you look at the Netherlands vs Germany, there are many similarities but also (small) differences!So, why don't you consider an attitude change? You are not only embarrasing youself with such a dumb post, you also cause people from Europe to think that all Americans are dumb and arrogant, but that probably is very far from the thruth...Dion Mollert

Do you, as "I'm American and thus better as the rest of thee world guy" actually know anything about Europe? In Europe we have different countries. All of them have different people with different culture... Some cultures may look similair, but if you compare for example The Netherlands and Portugal or Germany and Greece, you will see many differences... Even if you look at the Netherlands vs Germany, there are many similarities but also (small) differences!So, why don't you consider an attitude change? You are not only embarrasing youself with such a dumb post, you also cause people from Europe to think that all Americans are dumb and arrogant, but that probably is very far from the thruth...Dion Mollert

I couldn't agree more. I was taught if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. To my European friends, you guys are some of the best. Don't think all Americans are dumb and arrogant, Just some of us don't know how to keep their mouth shut.

oh no another fight, but seriously saying bad stuff about other country is only a recipe for a massive fight. Why cant we all get along? This is all I ever wanted (not making a drama scene here)