On this page is a thread which provides various aviation website addresses. One of those addresses is
http://www.airbus.com/pdf/customer/fast22/p24to27.pdf .It is an article by one of the senior pilot executives of Airbus and it deals with lightning protection for large aircraft and design for lightning protection on FBW aircraft. It goes into great detail relative to what must be incorporated into a design to protect the electronics systems and the structural elements in large aircraft.
Airbus has a Technical Design Directive entitled ELECTRICAL BONDING, LIGHTNING STRIKE PROTECTION & ELECTROSTATIC DISCHARGE (TDD 20A001). This design directive tells the engineers how to design the various systems and structural elements to minimize or eliminate lightning strike damage. It is quite well detailed and at the time I worked with it, it applied to the A-310 and the A-300-600, which I believe, uses the A-310 wing. The design directive also delineates the test procedures and the expected results of those tests to determine compliance with the directive.
However there is one problem they never did the testing and they never incorporated electrical bonding in the secondary flight control system on the A-310, (Flaps and Slats) which generate a great deal of spark discharge, which can influence the control system, and under certain configurations a lightning strike can cause arcing and quite possibly blow the wing off the aircraft.
Before a moderator jumps on me for saying these things it is fully documented and the FAA, DGCA and the LBA and CAA are aware of the problem.
