Shotone and Hugmonster
"The stun gun idea sounds like a good one -the engineer who said it would disable the aircraft sounded a bit alarmist. On what basis has he written his report -and why mention airbus specifically? All the modern jets have similar -often identical, electronic gear in the flight deck. Hugggie:"Shot One, I have to agree. If he was correct, no aircraft would ever survive a lightning strike."
Good wishful thoughts - but unfortunately incorrect:
a. Aircraft survive lightning strikes most of the time because great attention is paid to them being properly "bonded". (i.e. every metal part being connected to every other metal part even if it takes a bonding strap - no discontinuities are permitted (lest a spark jump that gap and ignite vapours). "There were only 2 explosions due to lightning strike, with 396 million flight hours accumulated since the last event in 1976" (see
http://www.iasa.com.au/PDF/execsum.pdf )
see
http://www.iasa.com.au/PDF/ar98-26.pdf (a download) - Pg17 or search "lightning"
b. A properly bonded aircraft is a Faraday Cage, impervious to externally applied electrical fields (including lightning). That's one thing that helps you keep your "shields up" against HIRF (flying over Exmouth Cape's hugely powerful emitters for instance).
c. Unfortunately if the zapping source is within the pressure vessel there are a number of vulnerabilities. Not the least of these is the practice of using that beautifully bonded fuselage as an earth return (for weight-saving, otherwise there would need to be an SWER single wire earth return for most systems). This is the vulnerability. This characteristic, unique to aircraft electrics, also leads to frequent intermittent faults and anomalies (flickering gauges, autopilot disconnects, radio antenna faults). Remember the flickering fuel-flow gauge remarked upon by TWA800 pilots and FE just before they blew?
see
http://www.iasa-intl.com/fuel_tank_dangers.htm#no2 for more info on just where that destructive spark came from (exactly).
d. So the internal lightning caused by the high voltages of a misdirected stun-gun or TASER
can cause the damage as described and Airbus and Boeing are now thinking about a number of aspects. Firstly, whether stun-guns or TASERS would be a good idea and secondly (perhaps more importantly) whether a suicidal terrorist would find it an effective way of "dropping" an airplane. If you've seen the minute size of some of these devices, you can imagine that you'd have to look at a large number of Maglite Torches, biro's, fountain pens and nasal inhalers amongst boarding pax - before you found one.
e. The reason why Airbus was asked (and then went silly about it) is that FBW control is the most vulnerable. If they feel so strongly that this is not actually the case, and that there is no flight safety (nor security) threat, then they should publish the results of their recent trials and explain how this could be the case. Don't hold your breath.