Wanna go flying?

[Rockets]

Crap, this may not work. This is an animated GIF showing a lightning bolt striking the airliner.

[dbflash]

awesome picture.

i think you are the first bb member to get a gif to work.

danny

[meagain]

What would happen in that case?

[customsteve01]

Meagain,

Yuo would be suprized by the number of a/c that are struck by lightning. Most of the time it only causes minor cosmetic damage. it is very rare that any electrical componants are damaged.

Airplanes are designed to disipate static electricity thru static dischargers on the trailing edges of the flight surfaces. All lightning is is really powerful static electricity. Most of the tome the lightning will skip across the skin and burn a few rivet heads and then will exit on one of the trailing edges. All the composit parts have a metal mesh inlaid in the top layer of fibers to help the flow of electicity.

With our airplanes its usually about a nights worth of work to get them back to flying passengers. Once one gets hit we have a full inspection that has to be done prior to flying passengers.

Steve

[colterphoto1]

In the words of DocWHo- FREAKIN AWESOME!

[meagain]

Steve - Thanks. It just looks like such a big bolt. Do planes have gadgets to detect this if not in-your-face visible?

[customsteve01]

the crews are suposed to do post flight and preflight inspections. Alot of the time these are found on the post flight and the crew didn't even really know they were hit. Now on the other hand there are times that it is just in your face like you said. when that happens we also need to check the crew seats for deposits left by the crew. [] That last part is really not true we just joke about it.

Steve

[johnyholiday]

In a private plane all your insurance is null an void,thats what my

pilot told me, an his goes from one million dollars life insurance to

$2,500 but will pay for what ever he takes out liability wise in a

crash,but that sucker there got wacked, get the number of the tail an

you will know what plane it is an all the info, out of that thick book

that has em all listed ,Air Force One is an interesting one to look up

[dtel's wife]

I do not like to fly.[li][]

[Jay481985]

customsteve01, does large commercial planes have a reverse lightning rod usually at the tai lend of the plane like the animated gif show. The reverse lightning rod just gives the electricity the option to leave the airplane and go dissapate to the ground as all the plane is is a conductor until it hits the ground. Unless what you said the static discharger is what I think is the reverse ligthning rod.

Also lightning happens to hit the earth about 1000 every minute across the earth. It happens alot more than people think. But one must think if the plane is hit they do not hear the crackle of the spark as even static charges can be heard from clothes and hair. Lightning or more realistically thunder just happens to be 189 db at source and most planes travel under the speed of sound so technically you should be able to hear the thunder?

[Rockets]

awesome picture.

i think you are the first bb member to get a gif to work.

danny

The funny thing is, on my computer once the GIF is loaded up to

Klipsch I lose the animation. I use two different browsers and it

makes no difference. Obviously something isn't set right, but I'll be

damned if I know what it is!

For those of you that can seee it here's a slow motion view

[colterphoto1]

customsteve01, does large commercial planes have a reverse lightning rod usually at the tai lend of the plane like the animated gif show. The reverse lightning rod just gives the electricity the option to leave the airplane and go dissapate to the ground as all the plane is is a conductor until it hits the ground. Unless what you said the static discharger is what I think is the reverse ligthning rod.

Also lightning happens to hit the earth about 1000 every minute across the earth. It happens alot more than people think. But one must think if the plane is hit they do not hear the crackle of the spark as even static charges can be heard from clothes and hair. Lightning or more realistically thunder just happens to be 189 db at source and most planes travel under the speed of sound so technically you should be able to hear the thunder?

Steve mentions the Static Dischargers at the trailing edges of the wings in his second post. That's what allows the electricity an easy escape route to avoid blowing holes in things.

[oldtimer]

Then there's the story of the (airline) scab who got hit by lightning while standing in her kitchen...