Why it's possible to fly near Iceland's volcano

[n2doc]

AP - April 22, 2010 2:44:03 AM EDT By DAVID BAUDER



It seems like a disconnect: Most of the media stories about flights grounded because of Iceland's volcanic eruption were accompanied by spectacular aerial photographs of the volcano.

That flashed through the mind of ABC News' Neal Karlinsky when he flew over Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano twice during the past week and even briefly landed on the crater.

"The irony was not lost on us that we were flying within feet or yards of an erupting volcano when the volcano was basically grounding every flight in Europe," he said.

Photographers caught spectacular scenes of spewing ash, roiling rocks and lightning bolts above the crater, even as flights were grounded in London, more than 1,000 miles away.

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http://www.mail.com/Article.aspx/tech/0/APNews/Tech/20100422/U_US-Iceland-Volcano-Pictures?pageid=1

[kayakjohnny]

1. To me it seems that the plume would be more focused and navigable

at the point of origin, than when it spread out into a giant V-shape, down wind. All you'd have to do is take off somewhere just up wind, and everything would be cool.

Far as I can tell.

One look at the satellite photos makes this fairly plausible.

Just mind the shifting winds, obviously.