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Old 3rd January 2024 | 11:49
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Pilot DAR
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From: Ontario, Canada
An electrostatic charge cannot build up on the ground, as the ground is, well, grounded.

Electrostatic charges may exists as a difference in electrical potential between two things, or one thing and ground. If you effectively ground the one thing to ground, it is grounded, and the charge will dissipate instantly, and not reoccur as long as the ground remains effective. If you electrically connect two un-grounded things to each other, you are bonding them to each other, but either are grounded. Again, an electrostatic charge will not for between these things, as long as the bond remains effective.

An electrostatic charge can build up and be held by anything, and is commonly associated with it moving past poor conducting particles. Airplanes build these charges up easily (large surface area, move quickly through lots of particles in the air, cannot be grounded on flight. Cars build up charges also, and you can get a spark if you exit a car in your bare feet, but, much less common or severe. In any case, all purpose made fuel delivery hoses have a bonding cable in the hose, to provide the best possibility of bonding, and grounding as the fuel nozzle is brought into contact with the vehicle. A very big no no, and I have warned people at gas stations - when filling plastic containers, they must be on the ground (not in the truck of a car, or bed of a truck).

When I flew and fueled Aztecs in the winter, after connecting the grounding cable before fueling, I got into the habit of momentarily contacting the back top of the fueling nozzle to a bare wingtip screw as I moved in along the wing toward the fuel filler - with the intention that if any small charge remained to be dissipated, it could do so from the back of the nozzle chassis to the airframe, well away from the filler neck. I don't know if doing so was effective, but I'm still here!

Yesterday, I refilled my empty airplane from the four plastic fuel containers into which I had drained the Avgas prior to maintenance. To assure bonding, I placed each plastic fuel container on the wing itself (to allow any possible equalization of the container to the airplane), then assured contact of the container spout to the funnel in the fuel filler before and as I poured. So far, so good, and had a great flight!
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