#ashtag update

[rm]

We're now ensconced in the guest room of our LJ rescuers. It's a lovely room, in a lovely flat, with lovely hosts, and we can see Parliament from the window, and it's all quite grand. There's a cat nosing at my toes. Yay.

Meanwhile, the news says that test flights trying to determine the safety of flying through the ash have found NO IMPACT from the ash on the planes. And I just don't know what to think, or how to process that emotionally.

On one hand, we know ash is dangerous to planes. If you've ever seen a Discovery Channel thing on this, you know, YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE IN A PLANE FLYING THROUGH ASH, because all your engines will shut down until you're clear of the ash, and you'll be lucky not to die.

On the other hand, seriously? Might it be that this ash is different? That the governments are being too cautious? THAT THIS HAS ALL BEEN FOR NOTHING? That we are trapped in the UK for no discernable reason?

And do I trust the airlines that are demanding that flight space be reopened because their test flights were safe and they are losing money? Not at all.

While our flight remains rebooked for Wednesday, the news is now saying that it is unlikely British airspace will reopen before Thursday, meaning we do not expect to get out until the weekend, although all of this is a theory right now. With the airlines exerting pressure and an emergency ministerial meeting called by Gordon Brown, I suspect anything could happen at any time.

I love the UK, and when are arrived here I was like "oh, I want to stay," but I'm a creature of plans and expectations, and being delayed bothers me slightly and not even having certitude about that bothers me _a lot_. I'm doing my best with it, and that best is pretty good, but it is awfully overwhelming to me.

I will be able to work remotely from here, although it is unideal. Patty will be able to do more daytime tourism. And I'll be able to see more London by night. If we get stuck until the weekend we'll be able to go back to the St. Katherine's Dock market again, so that's nice, and I still haven't squeezed in seeing Canary Wharf yet, so I'll have time now, although admittedly that seems a little ominous.

So yeah. It's all really, really fucked up and stressful. And it all may be for naught. Or greedy airlines and frightened governments may be about to get us all killed.

Comments

[editrx.livejournal.com]

I still haven't squeezed in seeing Canary Wharf yet, so I'll have time now, although admittedly that seems a little ominous.

May I caution, rm, that you STAY AWAY FROM WHITE WALLS.

Just sayin'. You are living way too close to the DW/Torchwood storyline as it is.

I wish my father was still alive so I could talk to him about this situation, as a pilot. He'd flown through a number of seriously bizarre circumstances during his stints both in the Navy and as a civilian, including through volcanic ash and storms I don't even want to think about (hell, he made ME copilot with him right through the middle of a major hurricane on the East Coast when I was too young to legally copilot because he refused to go around!). I do know from that particular venture with the volcanic ash, his attitude was "no one could make me to do that again -- not even the Navy," and he was a real "naw, I can fly through any shit" sort of pilot-jock.

I think the UK is taking a good pace at getting things back in the air -- and having the election coming is helping them be cautious. I know it's a huge inconvenience to you guys, but I'd rather have you back alive and well in NYC later rather than a disaster occur.

(And I'm so glad things worked out for where you are, whoever you ended up with! And a cat! Hurray! All the comforts of home but with better biscuits. :) )

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've finally seen some news on the volcanic ash that makes sense to me, which is that the cloud has six layers in it, some of which are the ones that are not damaging the test flights, but some of which are worse than anyone has ever seen, apparently, and that the test flights aren't going into. The theory is that perhaps planes could route around the worst of the strata, but if things shift suddenly while planes are in the air -- disaster. Hence the airlines advocating to get back up and everyone else being all "ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH?"

[editrx.livejournal.com]

I'm in the "ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH?" camp, as someone who used to fly, if as a civilian. I mean, shifting stratas? What, they want the pilots to play "guess which way the strata will move as we fly through it so we DON'T ALL DIE HORRIBLY"? Um ... no. Just, no. Stuff shifts in the atmosphere ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It doesn't stop. It's fluid dynamics, for god's sake. What are they thinking?

The airlines are losing tons of money and that's the bottom line for them, period. The pilots are losing money from not being at work, so that's probably making some of them say crazy stuff, but then a lot of pilots are crazier than air traffic controllers, which says a whole fuck of a lot if you've ever been with either of those groups of people for very long.

So yeah, you're going to hear a lot from the airlines (boo hoo, I'm so sorry you have a lousy business model to start with, so I'm not that sorry, no) and from some (but not all) pilots (you guys saying that shit are mostly insane, and I know this from growing up with them literally surrounding me, so gonna go with not sorry there too).

I'm actually rather glad you're over there, since Brown doesn't want a disaster on his hands and the rest of the government might agree with that, given the upcoming elections. I wouldn't have as much faith in some other places this could be happening (*cough cough*).

[rm.livejournal.com]

Word to all of this. And the pilots vs. air traffic controllers thing made me laugh out loud, because that shit is SO TRUE.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

When I was the wee age of 16, and supposedly too young to drink (hah! I was raised by a Scot who was a Navy pilot, you can guess how young he taught me to like the taste of single-malt), I was privy to a drinking bout disguised as a friendly get-together in the "club" after-hours at the-then regional airport out in Gettysburg, MD, outside DC, where my dad kept his plane. Pilots (all ex-military or even still in) and air traffic controllers.

OMG. Also: first (and only, thank god) time I ever got so drunk I woke up drunk the next day. There was a hands-off policy on the daughter of a Navy captain, but that didn't mean they didn't buy me a whole lot of liquor.

The insanity was ... epic. I vaguely remember cars being involved at some point. On the runway.

You know, I've never actually told my husband this story. Oops. LOL!