Effect of EMP on modern airliners ?
Just a small question to throw out for general comment.
It would seem to me that the risk of use of tactical or low yield nuclear weapons in some part of the world may have gone up.
Example 1. How might the Russians support Assad (and their own assets) in the event of an invasion of Syria by massed armour of Saudi-Gulf and Turkish Forces. They might elect to use the same defensive tactic that we had scheduled in similar circumstances for the Fulda Gap in the bad old days.
Example 2. The North Koreans are currently nuclear willie waving and threatening some kind of pre-emptive strike of the South. What if its not all just a big bluff and they do have some kind of crude device and delivery system on hand that will do the job.
The question is, if a tac nuke (or two) is set off somewhere in Syria or the Korean peninsular, what is the expected effect of the EMP of the blast on the performance (flyability) of the latest generations of FBW aircraft from messrs Boeing and Airbus ?? ... I don't expect that the systems will have been hardened against an EMP threat and they don't have any mechanical linkages any more ??
If the answer is as I suspect it may be .....whats a safe distance from the epicentre in order to be able to stay in the air at the moment of detonation ?