ASHTAM Home

What's this site for?

Mainly for aviation professionals to keep easily up to date with what is in the public domain about operations in or near volcanic ash clouds.

What's an ASHTAM?

Hands up if you knew what an Ashtam was or how to get before the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull in April 2010, come to think of it who has actually seen an ASHTAM now ? Follow this link if you are interested in what a real ashtam looks like

Aims

This aim of this site is to put all the useful aviation related Volcanic ash material (no pun intended) in one place, and a shameless promotion of my services as both a pilot and software developer.

Progress

Development started at 13:50 on Sunday 18th April 2010, you can keep up to date with Site Updates by visting this link.

Time Limited Zones

Our Google Earth KML Files now include data depicting the Time Limited Zones (Grey Ash Zone) as specified by the Met Office Model, we believe we were the first company to use this data to predict airspace availability after it was released by the Met Office at about 1330L on Tuesday 18th May 2010.

Useful Stuff from the CAA

Latest Updates

It seems the 60NM buffer zone around the Black Ash Zones is being abolished the BBC has more details here

The CAA have issued a policy statement referenced by Notam B0822/10 Overflight of Volcanic Ash Cloud in UK Airspace

Most of the UKs airspace can be reopened at 2200 on Tuesday 20 April 1010
UK’S INDEPENDENT AVIATION REGULATOR ISSUES GUIDANCE TO OPEN AIRSPACE WITH SAFETY RESTRICTIONS

The London Heathrow Control Zone and Channel Islands Control Zone are now both open to Special VFR traffic once again.
SPECIAL VFR FLIGHT – ICELANDIC VOLCANIC ASH CLOUD PROVISIONS

Notams that mention Volcanic or variations on it, most recently issued first.

Updated every hour at about 30 minutes past the hour. The links will take to my Griffin Helicopters site to display the Notams in detail.

B1930/10
EGTT A NEW NOTAM SERIES HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED TO PROMULGATE EN ROUTE VOLCANIC ASH RELATED INFORMATION. V [more..]

Volcanic Ash Google Earth Tools

You can now download the latest Volcanic Ash Advisories as Google Earth overlays by downloading the Volcanic Ash Advisory KML file.

If you need to generate your own KML files based on a VAA that does not relate to the latest Icelandic eruption you can do so on the Volcanic Ash Advisory Google Earth Tool page.

The Current version of the KML file allows you to view the current and next 4 forecast Volcanic Ash Advisories, with only the current version being visible to start with, the other layers can be viewed by ticking the folders in the Google Earth places folder when the file has been downloaded and opened.

The next version will allow just one download and subsequent updates will be controllable from within Google Earth out having to revisit this site each time.