PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - 787 Lightning strike issues v FAA
View Single Post
Old 7th Jan 2020, 05:04
  #52 (permalink)  
Dave Therhino
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Seattle Area
Posts: 263
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Dave Therhino
Hi TD. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that would be "once every fifteen years per aircraft," or about once every 50,000 flight hours, as opposed to once every 50,000,000 hours if it was once every fifteen years for a fleet of 1000 airplanes for strikes near 100kA and above. I could be wrong. I don't know that aspect of the industry data either, but I know someone who does. I'll ask him and report back.
My colleague confirmed the 200 kA peak current in the SAE model is based on the 95th percentile strike from data measured at multiple ground towers over several decades. Although the calculation is extremely crude, and probably off a bit, Boeing's ballpark once every 15 years for a maximum design level strike would be rate per airplane, not rate per fleet.

TD - Perhaps you were remembering estimates for the rate of maximum strike attachments to nacelles? Attachments to nacelles are only a few percent of the total attachments to the airplanes.
Dave Therhino is offline