While tens of thousands of bored passengers wait to see if they can at last make it to London and many parts of Europe, two teams of Airbus test pilots have just deliberately flown a giant A380 and the second largest Airbus type, an A340-600 all over the continent through as much volcanic ash as they could find in four hours.

The jets won, or so it seems, since both have been seen to make normal landings at Toulouse.

But now comes to the tricky bit, a detailed and microscopic inspection of the innards of the each of the four engines on each airliner looking for longer term damage from volcanic glass or pits caused by acidic grit to the surface of compressor blades or other vital parts.

It will be much later today before the results of those inspections are known, and possibly ever later before they are released to the public.

However for those who have been stuck in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Dubai since last Thursday, when blanket airspace closures followed the spread of volcanic plumes from Iceland, the obvious question is: who are these Mad Men?

Well, not ‘mad’ perhaps, but certainly ‘different’ from your ‘ordinary’ risk averse airline pilot. Both Airbus and Boeing have a hard core cadre of test pilots who are paid very, very well, to deliberately do insanely dangerous things to passenger aircraft, without passengers on board of course, while teams of specialists monitor what happens when a jet is intentionally flown into harms way.

Over at Boeing for example, there is a small but distinguished roster of program pilots who are doing things to the yet-to-be-certified test fleets of Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 747-8F , (the ultimate version of the 747 line) that would scare the hell out of regular sky warriors.

Things like stalling the jets at altitude, or seeing how slowly they can be flown a few metres above the ground without loss of control, or what happens when you approach a runway in a strong crosswind and then shut down an engine to replicate an in service failure.

Ordinary jets have to prove they be can be safety flown when things go extraordinarily wrong, and that means aircraft makers have to recruit very good, very experienced pilots prepared to do in a real airliner what regular airline pilots find very challenging to deal with in the safety of a flight simulator.

Back at Airbus, its test pilots haven’t really had any such thrills for a while, since the last certification program for one of its jets ended for the A380 in 2007, and their next ‘thriller’ is the yet to fly A350 project, due to begin its trials late in 2012.

Imagine what a godsend the volcano must have been for the Airbus team. A chance to throw the world’s biggest passenger jet around through clouds of volcanic ash looking for bother.

Of course the fun bit aside, there is another aspect to this. This is also the airlines versus European and British bureaucracy over the extensive volcanic ash bans that many airlines, including Air France KLM, and Lufthansa, and British Airways, regard as excessive and ‘untested.’

Airbus was obviously keen to do the real high and fast ‘testing’ on their behalf. A lot of ‘face’ for officialdom is at risk here, with many allegations made in recent days that an anti-airline political agenda lay behind the rigid and extensive and very expensive air traffic closures.

However, it is too early to say whose face is going to be rubbed in the volcanic ash, so to speak. While initial low level test flights by some European airlines yesterday found no evidence of volcanic ash damage, a higher level flight by some NATO F-16 jets returned one damaged jet with clear signs of volcanic glass contamination in the engine.

Scrap one F-16 engine. It is very difficult to repair engines damaged by volcanic ash, and scrapping is the usual course of action.

And for those Australians stranded either in Europe, or somewhere between, the current situation is, well, clouded. On one hand, the skies over Europe are mostly expected to clear in the next day, allowing many more flights to take place. But on the other, there has been a resurgence in the eruptions in Iceland, and there is already another dense cloud of ash threatening parts of the UK from about tomorrow, which could mean long distance flights from Australia and Asia do not get enough time to get into and out of Europe before at least some air space closures are re-instated.

It seems the gods of the volcano have not finished with the airlines just yet.