Volcanic ash camera in first tests over Mount Etna

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

Target Etna: the red ash camera is slung beneath the port wing (image: Adam Durant, NILU)

An infrared camera that aims to give pilots ten minutes notice of encroaching volcanic ash clouds began its first flight tests around Mount Etna in Sicily at the weekend. The technology - already taken up by budget airline EasyJet - is designed to save airlines the millions of pounds lost in the aircraft groundings in the Icelandic volcanic ash crisis of spring 2010.

Atmospheric physicist Fred Prata, who developed the device, and Adam Durant of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research?(NILU) in?Kjeller are running the flight tests from the Calatabiano airstrip, about 20 kilometres northeast of Etna, alongside colleagues from the University of Applied Sciences in Dusseldorf, Germany, who have provided a single-engined Flight Design CTSW?research aircraft.

Pilot Uwe Post is running 2-hour flights around Etna's ash plume (image: Adam Durant, NILU)

With Etna currently emitting plumes of ash, it's a perfect time to test the camera - which Prata has dubbed the Airborne Volcanic Object Imaging Detector (AVOID). "Etna emits large amounts of gases like sulphur dioxide, and frequently has explosive eruptions that emit volcanic ash particles to the atmosphere," says Durant. "So AVOID simultaneously makes measurements in different regions of the thermal infrared spectrum to distinguish ash from sulphur dioxide and regular clouds."

At the weekend, the team flew "a series of trajectories towards Etna's plume at various heights up to 12,000 feet and then back out over the Ionian Sea", says Durant. "Apart from a focusing issue, which was corrected after the initial flight, everything has gone to plan."

Later this week, AVOID's initial in-flight plume density measurements will be cross-checked with measurements taken from the ground in a bid to ensure its accuracy.

AVOID aims to give pilots ten minutes notice of ash hazards (image: Adam Durant, NILU)

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