Originally Posted by blave
most of you have probably heard of this, but there's a system available (or at least under development?) that detects wires based on their emissions. Of course this means that the wires need to be live to be detected, but it might reduce the occurence of strikes.
I wonder if the system would fit in an S300C?
http://www.safeflight.com/products/powerline.html
Dave Blevins
Good idea and good point. I'm just a private pilot and not a pro like you guys, but the single most important piece of info I know about wirestrikes is very rarely publicized, so I'll put it here. On all sizable cross-country power lines (pylons can be of any type) there is, in addition to the supported conductors, a grounded lightning arrestor cable. Its purpose is to act as a lightning rod and to carry strikes to earth first thru the pylon itself rather than have the lightning travel the conductors and mess with the powerlines. To do this it has to be a bit higher than the rest of the structure. The LAC is typically much thinner and harder to see than the conductors, and it is stretched more tightly from pylon-top to pylon-top. Look for them the next time you see a big power pylon, a long thin wire from the top of the pylon to the next ones. Many a pilot has flown over the "sag" in the cables only to meet the LAC many feet above it. I reflexively look for them and am astounded at many of them there are and how hard they are to see. And since they normally carry no current, they wouldn't register on an emission-detecting wire avoidance system. But they're there, a fact well known to the power companies. And now YOU.
