Ski Club 2.0 Home
Snow Reports
FAQFAQ

Mail for help.Help!!
Log in to snowHeads to make it MUCH better! Registration's totally free, of course, and makes snowHeads easier to use and to understand, gives better searching, filtering etc. as well as access to 'members only' forums, discounts and deals that U don't even know exist as a 'guest' user. (btw. 50,000+ snowHeads already know all this, making snowHeads the biggest, most active community of snow-heads in the UK, so you'll be in good company)..... When you register, you get our free weekly(-ish) snow report by email. It's rather good and not made up by tourist offices (or people that love the tourist office and want to marry it either)... We don't share your email address with anyone and we never send out any of those cheesy 'message from our partners' emails either. Anyway, snowHeads really is MUCH better when you're logged in - not least because you get to post your own messages complaining about things that annoy you like perhaps this banner which, incidentally, disappears when you log in :-)
Username:-
 Password:
Remember me:
👁 durr, I forgot...
Or: Register
(to be a proper snow-head, all official-like!)

Easyjet to trial volcanic ash detection system
 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead

Quote:
Easyjet has unveiled a system that it says will allow airlines to safely fly around ash clouds.

It involves infra-red technology that allows pilots to see the damaging particles up to 62 miles ahead.

The theory is that a pilot can then change course and continue to fly safely.

It has the support of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the body that decides whether it is safe to fly through ash in UK airspace.

The CAA said it was happy an airline appeared to have found a technical solution, and, although it was not endorsing the product, it would do what it could to help certification.
'Silver bullet'

Earlier this year, many air passengers had their travel plans wrecked when airlines had to scrap thousands of flights due to the Icelandic volcanic ash problem.

The CAA faced criticism from some airlines, who argued that the body had been overly cautious.

Easyjet chief executive, Andy Harrison, said: "This pioneering technology is the silver bullet that will make large-scale ash disruption history."

The new system, called Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector (Avoid), will be tested by Airbus on behalf of Easyjet within the next two months.

Easyjet, which is spending £1m ($1.47m) on the system, says it is happy for rivals to share its knowledge.

Mr Harrison, said: "What we don't want to do is to gain a commercial advantage over other airlines so we can fly and they can't. We are not going to exclude people from this technology."

He said the hardest part would be to get approval from European authorities.
Ash damage

Easyjet said the volcanic ash disruption had cost it up to £75m,

Its passenger figures for last month, showed 215,000 of its own passengers had their travel plans disrupted because of volcanic ash and 1,600 flights were cancelled.

Despite the impact of the ash cloud, the expansion of the no-frills airline meant that it still flew 7.9% more people in May than a year ago.

The average load factor of the plane, an important measure of airline efficiency, was 85.8% compared with 83.5% in May 2009.

A total of 4.25 million people took a flight with Easyjet in May, up from 3.95 million last year.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10234553.stm


Let's hope it works and get approval.
snow report
snow report



Terms and conditions  Privacy Policy