Ultralights

pretty cool!

strangly i have never been on an aircraft that took a lightening hit, whats it like?

Mr.Buzzy

Aaaaaaaaaahhhh..... Hair-pie..........

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Keg

Very bright Ultralights. Very bright indeed!! Not as loud as I expected though!

Capn Bloggs

I wonder what the radar looked like before blastoff...

schnauzer

It must vary a little then Keg. My experience was about the loudest noise I have ever heard. There was a very large brown stain, too.

numbskull

It's amazing that it does so little damage the majority of times.

A couple of dozen burnt rivets and busted static discharge wick or two is about it usually.

Kaptin M

.....or a tiny hole(s) (usually) surrounded by black charring - which you really do have to make a concerted effort to try to locate.
The loudness of the "bang" will depend upon where the strike is - if it's on the radome, or near the cockpit, then you'll hear it - a short BANG (as opposed to a quick bang in a hotel room )

Capt Snooze

Quite correct Kappy and numbskull............


Or, on a different occasion, a VERY loud bang and blinding light (cockpit left-hand window pillar hit), light fittings flying around the cockpit, and a rather large sheet of metal peeled back on the upper surface of the horizontal stabiliser.

Ultralights

that sounds pretty extreme! why does it only ever appear to hit rivets or other fasteners?

OZBUSDRIVER

Thats the only thing that scares me about plastic aircraft

Ultralights

plastic parts of aircraft have conductive paint and/or aluminium mesh bomded into the top layer of plastic!

farqueue

UL, it does not only hit the fasteners, but they do the arky sparky around the edges and that lewaves nice visible evedence.

Some took a big hit in a glider a while back, and found out that a carbon fibre disk rag has a rather sad flight path. They found a fused lump of Al that looked very like the control linkages in another padock.

Remember, practice safe bondage