PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Effect of aircraft being struck by lightening
Old 1st Feb 2011, 22:07
  #13 (permalink)  
ericferret
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: England
Posts: 1,463
Received 34 Likes on 20 Posts
Some of the larger all metal aircraft suffer from lightning strikes on a regular basis. For some reason the 737-700 seems particularly prone.

One UK -700 going in to heavy maintenance was found with over 40 burns on the fuselage crown skins. Usually they are on rivets which require replacement, if the rivet holes are damaged beyond limits then larger repairs are required. As the aircraft are pressurised this makes even small amounts of damage a serious issue. A regular lightning strike area on the 737 series is the wing tip navigation lights. Not unusual to find steel screw heads totally burnt off.

One composite aircraft I work on is subject to regular bonding checks as the tail is almost totally composite. Keeping the bonding figures within limits is time consuming and difficult.
They usually are out of limits until all the bonding points are cleaned up.

There is a photo of one of Helikopter Services Super Puma's which had a lightning strike on a composite main rotor blade. The photo shows the chief engineer at Bergen with his head through the hole!!!!
ericferret is offline