Ash up your pipes

I'm glad that it looks like we're going to be able to re-open the airways tomorrow, even if it's not for all that long.
I'm more glad that no aircraft have fallen out of the sky.
I'm rather pissed off with the people saying that nothing happened so the precautions were excessive.
If someone plays Russian roulette and doesn't die, would you say there was no danger at the start or that they were lucky? Would you say "they were fine so I'll give it a go"?

There is ash in the atmosphere, it's nasty shit.
If you think I'm overstating that, consider that this is made of rock (generally between 0.1 and 1 mm but sometimes much bigger than that) that can rather damage windscreens and paintwork, not to mention potentially breaking the skin of the airframe; there's volcanic glass mixed in (more so in this case as the silicon dioxide makes up 58% of the tested ash at Lerwick) which can melt in the combustion stage of a jet engine and form a layer of glass over the insides of the engine (check Flight Global for images of what volcanic ash can do to the engine on a F-18) as well as the fact that the ash itself can build up on surfaces and stick, ruining airflow and making the aircraft somewhat heavier. Oh, and did I mention the sulphur? Yeah, it's sulphurous, too much of it and it becomes a danger to respiration, add water and it can become sulphuric acid, oh and it stinks!
Can be pretty though, the effects of the particles cause a static buildup that results in lightning at the volcano and St Elmos fire on the surface of aircraft flying through it. Cop yer whack at this:
from NASA for an indication.
More pictures (some amazing ones as well) from the Big Picture from the Boston Globe.

We've had recorded ash across the entire UK, you can't see it but it's there. Or at least you can't see it in the air but it becomes visible when it builds up on cars and other surfaces. We've seen this from Lerwick, Aberdeen, Boscombe, all across Devon and most of the south. They took samples from West Freugh in southwest Scotland and they found 2000 ft of ash at two different levels in the atmosphere today. Some parachute dudes found a couple of layers (they reported some weird visual effects and "a stinging sensation on the lips" as well as dark areas in the air) and before you say "but the BA and Lufthansa flights were OK", we knew that we don't know the exact areas of the ash, it's distribution or exact makeup so we knew there would be clear areas and not clear areas, the research flights that went up found both.
We had some satellites but they were obscured by higher cloud, our radar isn't good (expensive) enough to find the ash, we don't have enough actual weather balloons spread across country (or upwind - it's ocean, which isn't really conducive to weather balloons) to get detail of the atmosphere and our wind profiler/lidar network needs so much investment any political party that suggested funding it properly would be laughed off the stage. We do have some of the best observers and forecasters in the world, one of (if not the) best set of models in the world, although they could do with being a bit more flexible, which we could do with more funding and a bit more flexible approach. But we haven't had a situation like this crop up, we've no experience of this type of thing on this scale and it takes us time to get the required information. It might even take us a week.

I was asked "how much ash is too much, because I've heard there is no safe amount?" and I can't answer this because I'm not an engineer or a Rolls Royce specialist. They (Rolls-Royce) are saying you need to cover the aircraft, put them inside and don't turn on the engines. Preferably cover them with fine silks and satins. OK, I'm exaggerating slightly, but only a bit.

In the 1980s a couple of 747s hit ash clouds and had all their engines cut off. These clouds are one of the few things that can kill all the engines on a multi-engine aircraft within minutes. To clear the engines of the glass build-up you need to put LOTS of clean air through the engines which generally requires about 12000 ft of free-fall. Our ash layers were around 4000-8000 ft.

Yes, it's been an embuggerance for many, many people, our mail up here is stalled (the post is sent by aircraft then driven on), my girlfriend is stuck at Brize Norton until at least Thursday and we'd both rather she could have waited up here until she was needed, not to mention the financial implications and all the people stranded.
But let me put it this way, I would rather she spent ten years waiting at Brize rather than be in an aircraft that took the risk of flying through an ash cloud at 8000 ft and having the aircraft turn into a glider.

Have a look at this for more explanation.

Could different levels of reaction be used in the future? Yes.
Yes if we know the exact distribution of the ash.
Yes if we know the composition of the ash.
Yes if we know how fast it's being produced.
Yes if we know the winds at every 500 ft interval and the vertical motion of the air over the entire area of the ash cloud.

Until that point ask yourself if fire engines need to drive so fast to every call out, or if you want your doctor to take you seriously any time you have a sharp pain in your chest. Or would you rather the fire brigade assumed you were burning toast rather than stuck in a building, your doctor assumed you were over-reacting rather than see if it was an heart attack.
Are you happy with the airline assuming that they know best and that because "they didn't hit any ash areas" means "we won't hit any ash areas."
Or wait until we know more about the circumstances and can say "OK, we've had a check and we think this area is safe while this area isn't."
Even if it takes a week.

Or the volcano stops.

I probably should have called them back and told them it was a joke

Just in case there are any guys from 12 Sqn reading this, I was kidding, we're not being privatised (yet - ask me again after the election...), we're not being bought out by Disney, I won't be going into briefings wearing Mickey Mouse ears and we won't be diverting all telephone enquiries (including target weathers) to a call centre based in Mumbai.

Honestly, I was going to say that they should check the date but it was too much fun.
Wasn't as good as last years though.

Think I'll shrink wrap my boss' desk next year.

Some things, but not all, and not quite the ones I wanted

Christmas and the New Year, Kate, myself and two friends (Tash and Chris) went off to Arosa in Switzerland for a couple of weeks snowboarding and spending quality time together. It was epic and my 'boarding has improved massively (as I found out at the Lecht a while later - but more on that later). There was a decent amount of snow and some unbelievable conditions, although on Christmas Day the falling snow, which did give a wonderful surface, meant visibility was only about 10 feet and you couldn't see where the edges of the slopes were. Fell over lots, only big falls a couple of times though.
Spending time with Kate was marvellous, but the two weeks went too fast, as always happens.

Into the new year and Scotland had the coldest winter in decades, for which there had been a 1 in 7 chance of a colder than average winter for the northwest of Europe. People forget that the seasonal forecast is for large areas, not specific places. Some people think that the forecasts ruled out cold winters, but if you roll a die there is a 1 in 6 chance of getting a 5. No matter what the outcome, there was a 1 in 6 chance of getting a 5. But there's got to be someone to blame, hasn't there?

Moving on.

Work was quiet, so I managed to take the opportunity to use the service transport to the Lecht for a days boarding. Conditions were a bit icy in some places but generally awesome and it was the best boarding I've ever done. Also the longest session, for which I paid the next three days...
No photos of that, so you'll have to take my word on it.

Been working all the jobs we have, observing, forecasting at both stations, forecasting on the big desk; also found out how much my job is worth in the private sector. Turns out it's LOTS more than we are paid. Government say we should be paid just under median market value but the market is based on what we're paid. Go abroad (such as Australia) and you can get even more. Even with the exchange rates and cost of living, lots more. Not for me though, not yet anyway.

Friend (one of the Sarahs) has been in hospital a lot recently, she's got a rare form of MRSA called PVL MRSA (I think), so she's been in isolation having her system cleared, the rare times she's been out of hospital we took her dog for a bit of a walk on the beach.


Turns out I've got a lot to learn about taking photos in snow. Been recommended changing the exposure settings.

The house move has been delayed, partly due to weather slowing things down, but also problems with planning permissions; and still no news about the potential job development, but might hear next week, or the week after. Having said that I've started becoming an NVQ assessor, it's even more work that doing the sodding NVQ itself! The first assessment went ok, once I'd finally finished the write-up. Hope to get that finished by the end of summer.

Back to Exeter next week for more training, but now it's off to work for the night.

Autumn turns, and the moon is born again

The blog title isn't leading to anything, I just thought it'd be nice to write.

In September I was down at head office doing a course in winter forecasting, which was pretty good. Like most of the training we get, it can feel that we're being overtrained, but I had a think about it and I realised that they could just tell us "if you see this, then you put this into your forecasts" but rather than do that, they teach "if you see this, then this is happening, which means this might happen." We get taught the background reasoning and systems at work, rather than just the effects. When you think about it this is probably why our training takes longer and is more expensive than other places.
I had a big hire car when I was down there, with an electric handbrake, but I did NOT like it, I can see it working with an automatic, but not safely with a manual.

Bit later, I was back south for Dad's 65th, for which mum and Becky had arranged a surprise party. Keeping a surprise from Dad is not easy but we managed it, when he walked into the room he was expecting to go in and have a half price pizza, not for there to be 50 odd friends and family from all over, grouped together for him. Which was brilliant.
I managed to see Pippa, Sara and Andi, and Sian and Matt while I was south, which was awesome, and when I got back it was Oktoberfest, again awesome.

We had the station Friends and Family day, bit like an airshow but small scale. Typhoon came round and did a very impressive display - that thing just has buckets of power! I was working for the start of the day, and did the weather brief for the Red Arrows, also got to watch them doing their pre-flight brief, where they dissected their last performance, and they are REALLY strict with each themselves and each other. Have a few photos:



Apart from that, not too much has been happening. I'm going to be moving next year, a friend is buying a house and I'm going to be renting a room from her; I've been working a lot over the road at the other station, mainly at a level above what I'm supposed to be working. I'm looking at potential job development, but have nothing concrete yet.
I've almost got used to that moment when you think "oh good, it's half two and I start work at half five." But I still don't like that thought.

Language

Kate sent something to me that I feel I must share, it's a little poem about the English language..

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

(some sources add a final couplet)

And yet to write it, the more I sigh,

I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.

Hope she doesn't mind me reposting it here. There's an American reading it here, but up here "dead" can indeed be pronounced "deed", and don't get me started on the Welsh year, here and ear, all of which are said "ur" or saucepan in the Townhill dialect.

One of the sources gives the following:

The poem...is attributed to T.S.Watt (1954) and appeared in the Guardian...

However, in the following publication it is attributed to Richard Krough, 
see: O'Grady, W., Dobrovolsky, W. and Katamba, F.1997. 
"Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction_, London: Longman, p.614"

Interestingly, following one of the links trying to find an author with whom to credit the work, I came across a version on the West Cumbria Dyslexic Association, which has an option at the top to very quickly change the background of the page. I'm wondering if this would be a quicker way to test if anyone does find particular backgrounds easier to read from. Or, in the case of Mac Cmd+Opt+Ctrl+8 to invert the page, although I personally have issues reading white text on a black background (persistence of vision is a bugger) it does make the text stand out better.

Right, last bit of packing listening to Tori Amos on the radio before the hire car turns up, drive to Inverness via work, fly to Bristol, pick up another hire car, drive to Exeter for a course in winter forecasting/explosive cyclogenesis/polar lows then home in time for the last night of the Proms!

Right, been a while but here we go with a catch up. The little story thing pretty much went as I’d thought it would, thanks for the feedback though Rich! I’m sure I’ll have missed something that’s happened in the time since my last full post, but the main things since I passed my IAM (still woohoo about that!) are that I applied for a new job at work and did some walking.


Ok, maybe it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The new job wasn’t actually a new job but a 3 months secondment to a place called Rothera. To say that I was rather keen to go would be an understatement and pretty much all the indications were that I had a good shot at it. The position had been massively undersubscribed in previous years and I had Southern Hemisphere experience, winter experience and could put a tick in all the boxes on the application form.
But alas, it was not to be. Once the sift date had gone past and then a bit of extra time had lapsed I gave HR a call and was told that it wasn’t their department. Next day (hmmmmm, bit suspicious about the timing) I got the email saying that I had been unsuccessful in my application. I asked for some feedback but so far haven’t received any; there’s almost no point asking HR about it at the moment as we’re in the middle of a pay offer so they are all busy telling people that they’re not really getting a £5000 pay cut, it just looks that way.

So, one disappointment down, but now I may get the chance to spend Christmas with my girlfriend and some mates in Switzerland. So, not all bad.

Tash and Chris came up again for the Summer Ball, which had waltzers, a surfing simulator, laser clay pigeon shooting, FOOD, drink, more food and other posh entertainments (but not of the “masked ball” variety).

Chris and Tasha on the surf simulator. Yes, I did go on it, and did quite well, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. Shame.
Week later we met up again, this time at a camping site in the Cairngorms, in preparation for the big walk – the Wolftrek 45 mile jaunt from Forres to Cairngorm. In the end I had to bin first, partly due to feet but mainly my knee was about to collapse; so I stacked at 17 miles, Tasha made 32 and Chris and Venora managed the whole 45 miles, swearing never to do anything as silly EVER AGAIN.
The time for their 45 miles was 19 hr 15 minutes, which was pretty damn good, but a bit longer than the fastest guy, who completed the route in 6 hr 52 min. ^-^
We had started out at a decent pace for the route, about 3 miles an hour, which we felt we could sustain, and which was about the right pace to get a time on par with the average from the last year’s pack. Problem was that everyone started off in a big bunch, mainly at the pace of the people who were only planning to do the first section. Pretty soon we were at the back, which isn’t a problem really, just a bit disheartening.
By the end some 40% had dropped out. Our team was the last to reach the first, second and third/last checkpoints but Chris and Venora finished in the middle of the pack, mainly as they didn’t get caught out by stopping in the comfy chairs at Glenmore Lodge.
Three days later I get a message from Chris asking if I was up for trying to beat the time next year. Ha! So much for never again!

Kate is up visiting, and we’re trying to successfully use the bread maker that Tasha and Chris got for me, but my first attempt was less than brilliant.

We also went to see Coraline over the weekend, a Neil Gaiman film that you can tell is one of his stories for children by the way it’s dark and quite disturbing. Good though, especially the cat.