PICTURES: Finnish F-18 engine check reveals effects of volcanic dust
By Craig Hoyle


The Finnish air force has released images showing the effects of volcanic dust ingestion from inside the engines of a Boeing F-18 Hornet fighter, while it prepares to make inspections on several additional aircraft.
Five of the air force’s Hornets were involved in a training exercise on the morning of 15 April, just hours before the imposition of airspace restrictions due to the ash cloud spreading from a major volcanic eruption in Iceland.
One aircraft’s engines have been inspected so far using a boroscope, with melted ash clearly visible on its inside surface. The air force decided to release the images to show the potentially damaging effects of current flight activities, says chief information officer Joni Malkamäki.

“The images show that short-term flying can cause substantial damage to an aircraft engine,” the air force says. Continued operation could lead to overheating and potentially pose a threat to the aircraft and its pilot, it adds.






http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/04/16/340727/pictures-finnish-f-18-engine-check-reveals-effects-of-volcanic.html

K&N filters suck

Damn, that's no joke. I still have a mason jar of ash I scooped out of a Portland street when Mt.St Helens blew in 1980. That stuff is like abrasive talcum powder. Very fine.

I have a few softball size rocks and a container of ash from Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines.

The ash from it was more like sand and glass though.

And the airlines are pushing the goverments to open the airspace!

It's all about the money!

There are a shit load of perishable and time sensitive items stuck on the ground.  People are loosing an estimated $250mil a day because of the shut downs.  So yeah, its about money, cause you know, everything involves those evil little dollars.



 

Euros

My flight to Europe today was not canceled, but I chose not to go for exactly this reason.

The cons of just in time inventory are becoming painfully obvious.

Not canceled isn't the same as leaving the runway - you positive it was flying and, if so, to where?

Our corporate travel folks are saying nothing is going to London, still.

Well what happened to that expensive rail network we always hear about in Europe?

Europeans have no idea how condensed their population clusters are.  It's 300 miles from Paris to Amsterdam.  Get in the f'ing car.

Not to mention, sandblasting the cockpit screens with abrasive ash at 650MPH.

Barcelona, and it was flying

That and the fact that most of my meeting attendees were supposed to come from London = no trip

I read that the ash basically has the consistancy of a media(sand/glass)blaster, so it's easy to understand the impact it would have on turbofan components.

It's both abrasive as hell and also melts and becomes glass slag in and behind the hottest parts of the engine.



There's a similar recurrent issue with fighters in the middle east.   Engines are swapped out on a regular basis,

torn down, and the accumulated glass is knocked off as part of the rebuild process.





CJ