Lightning Sensors

[Capt. Horrendous]

Two of the aircraft types I have flown have had lightning sensors fitted. The relative bearing indication I understand to be similar to DF, but does anyone know how these devices measure the range of the discharge ?.

[RUDAS]

use your ADF.Its the most effective 'lightning finder'you can get.(just dont try navigating with it in a storm,please). range finding may be a problem though.

[ICT_SLB]

Capt. H,
From the L-3 (ex-Goodrich, ex-Ryan) Stormscope website:

The Series I ranged storms using the amplitude of the 50 kHz component of the lightning strike. The WX-1000 series uses several aspects of the 50 kHz component (Rise time, fall time, pulse width, etc.) The WX-900, 950 & 500 look at the same aspects of 11 different frequencies to range the strike. In addition the WX-500 & 950 have a “CELL” mode and a “STRIKE” mode, the Strike mode displays the strike similar to the Series I (with radial spread) and the Cell mode uses a more accurate method of ranging the strike.

I was once told that the direction finder approximated a 10 MHz ADF.

The Honeywell system may use a different method as it only shows areas of strikes as symbols rather than the dot per strike of the Stormscope.

[Tinstaafl]

They have an internal model of the signal stength & characteristics of a 'typical' lightning flash(es). The received signal is compared to the model & algorithms calculate the distance using the principle that signal strength reduces with distance.