tango234 wrote:The RN have brought in the Ark Royal to get people home-unsurprising really.
That will help with about 1000 of the estimated 40,000 stranded. HMSs Ocean and Albion are also on the way, but the primary job of
Albion is to recover about 500 soldiers of The Rifles who have completed a six month tour of Afghanistan (with the loss of 30 men and dozens wounded) from Santander, with available space being used for up to 300 civilians . The Rifles had been flown by RAFair to Cyprus and by contractor to Spain.
tango234 wrote:A British Airways plane also did a test flight out of Cardiff-according to them there wasn't anything to worry about-the atmosphere was clear and the engines didn't fill with ash.
But it's not known whether it flew through any significant amounts of ash because it wasn't fitted with any monitoring equipment. It may have been lucky enough to miss the ash, so this 'experiment' by BA is almost meaningless. Another test was flown in the west Midlands and found ash at levels below 3000ft.
There's a saying I've heard many times, "I'd rather be sat on the ground wishing I was flying, than flying and wishing I was sat on the ground".
All flying was suspended here at RAF Shawbury on Thu. I'm getting pretty good at the vector diagram now

"We attack tomorrow under cover of daylight! It's the last thing they'll be expecting ... a daylight charge across the minefield .."