Grounding Aircraft

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stgeorge said:
I would not think you could or would want to.

...Ok.. Then how would you make the plane safe ?
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The plane is a giant Faraday cage and it is safe.

The passengers are as safe as the guy in this Faraday cage.

farada4.jpg


But planes get hit by lightning quite often and do quite fine.

Check out this link

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae568.cfm
 
stgeorge said:
I would not think you could or would want to.

...Ok.. Then how would you make the plane safe ?
Click to expand...

There are multiple static dissipators are installed on the planes;
1./ to dissipate chrages accumulated by separation,
2./ to discharge charges picked up while moving through a charged field, such as a cloud so it is not an attractant to the opposite charge in the adjacent cloud.
Any of these efforts are partial solutions.

The problem still remains unsolved is how to prevent the airframe being a conductor between two adjacent clouds with dissimilar charges and therefore the precipitator of the disharge - lighting - itself.


As far as grounding the aricraft, the FAA will ground any aricraft type when a systemic malfunction is disocvered and that type of craft remains grounded until a solution satisfactory to the FAA is found and implemented.:D
 
weressl said:
As far as grounding the aricraft, the FAA will ground any aricraft type when a systemic malfunction is disocvered and that type of craft remains grounded until a solution satisfactory to the FAA is found and implemented.:D
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Now thats funny!
 
weressl said:
As far as grounding the aricraft, the FAA will ground any aricraft type when a systemic malfunction is disocvered and that type of craft remains grounded until a solution satisfactory to the FAA is found and implemented.:D
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How bad does it have to be before they have to use irreversible means?
 
stgeorge said:
Working with fighter pilots they tell me it happens more than most people realise so....How do you Ground and aeroplane while inflight??
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I remember one explanation while working on A-10's in 1987, but don't know how it holds up over 20 years.

1) During lighting, circuit potentials remain unchanged relative to the entire system getting charged equally.

Another possibility:

2) Since lighting frequencies are extremely high, perhaps the energy transfer is limited to shallow areas across the airframe or skin, limiting damage to heat-sensitive materials.
 
The aluminum body acts as an equipotential plane (pardon the pun). It doesn't matter what the voltage is as long as it's the same everywhere.
 
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