That's pretty much about how long it took to ruin four jet engines by inadvertently flying through a volcanic ash cloud that was diffuse enough that the pilots could not see it.
A NASA DC-8 did that ten years ago. The study is here (27 page PDF).
(Somebody tell Volcano Booby about this.)
Smarter than
1 day ago
Freakin' terrifying. I wonder how dangerous it is to recips? Could we develop a whole fleet of trans-oceanic recips with shutterable windscreens?
ReplyDeleteThere are not enough large recips left to do that. We'd have to get the Coast Guard back in the "ocean station rescue" business. There isn't the fuel infrastructure to support them. The airports would all have to put back the large run-up pads that they used to have. The environmentalists would go nuts about the big jump in the use of leaded fuels. And you'd have to filter the living shit out of the incoming air, for the ash would do a number on the cylinders, the valve seats, the turbochargers and the "parts recovery" turbines.
ReplyDeleteThen it's Zeppelins!
ReplyDeleteOr this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel
You mean this one?
ReplyDelete