An airplane's ability to handle lightning strikes...

[alloy_skydragon]

I was just wondering (since I don't know much about planes,
I just really like them) if an airplane (doesn't matter what type) can take lightning strikes in the air. I've heard it damages the engines and I've also heard it really has no effect. Of course, who would know it better than a pilot themself!:D

-Thanx for any answers in advance!

[F-22]

Yes they can they are made out of a certain meterial to which can with stand a lightning bolt fighter jets on the other hand have the aerodynamics so the lightning just goes right over them.:cool:
sorry knot commercial jet person.


Josh

[Cool_Hand]

Lightening can be very serious and also have little effect.
First thing is when the lightening strikes it tends to either fry your electronics or pop your circuit breakers, but if it hits, passes through and leaves an area of the aircraft where there are no electrics you tend to just get two burn marks.
In the past if lightening struck a partially empty fuel tank a spark could generate and ingnite the fuel vapour and destroy the aircraft.

Nowadays when an aircraft is designed, it is constructed in such a way so as to try and equalise the electrical potential so when lightening strikes it no sparks are made and hence the lightening passes straight through from point of initial contact to a point on the aircraft where the surrounding air is at a lower potential (essentially the ground). Unfortunately this still doesn't stop the electronics going off line.

['%MAC']

Got hit a while back, hand flying at 14,000 feet. Funny thing was I got a shock from the yoke, but the tubes didn’t even flicker, no popped CBs – melted the radome though. Those diverter strips do work.

[PPRuNeUser0171]

http://www.aaib.detr.gov.uk/bulletin/feb01/gbikl.htm

I have been told that the motion of an aircraft through certain types of weather can generate a bolt of lightning...

--
Gary Williams.

[mono]

An aircraft is a flying Faraday cage (a metal one at least). Providing the bonding is good it can withstand a lighting strike with only 'entry' and 'exit' holes. Cb's tripping, shocks through the yoke, etc are signs of a bonding problem. Get the engineers to check with a bonding tester, they should find a fault.

Composite structures (usually control surfaces or in the case of Airbus almost the entire empanage) have a coating or are empregnated with carbon or similar to provide a conductive path for the lightning.

So the lightning just passes through the a/c and earths itself on terra firma, a tree or the nearest golfer sheltering under his/her umbrella.

The situation with a fabric/wooden a/c is entirely different and could be a shocking experience.:D

[FlapsOne]

F-22

Can you explain this theory that fighter aircraft somehow have 'the aerodynamics' to make lightning go 'right over them'?

[low n' slow]

I know that gliders tend to break up when hit by a lightning bolt.
The thing is, gliders often have water in their wings (to permit a highter speed without affecting max gliding range), and this water will be heated to boiling temperature which in turn breaks up the wings.
Dunno about metal a/c but I have also heard that the lightning can weld together say, the gears in a turboprop and the likes.

/lns

[ooizcalling]

Check this out :

http://lightning.pwr.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/lrg/temp/plane.html

Impressive eh ?

[Capt. Crosswind]

Worst of a couple of dozen strikes I had or have first hand knowledge of was circa 1970
Acft CV880
Time: about 1200 local
Taipei
2 mile final approach
Wx : overcast base 1500 ft , light rain, viz 5km
Flight conditions: visual
Strike was on fuselage just behind radome
** All bus tie breakers & gen control breakers opened leaving only pilots essential bus. No big deal as we we were visual on short final.
No damage to radome nor any avionics equipment,
lost a bunch of P-Stat dischargers off empenage.
Back at base Engineering assured me it could not happen, as
surge would not penetrate hull & get into acft electrics.
Note: I never fly in fly by wire aircraft in view of the above.

[Flash2001]

In the 60s a jet airliner (I forget whether it was a 707 or a DC8) was destroyed in mid air over Pennnsylvania by a lightning strike. I believe that the theory was that an arc struck across a fuel tank vent and an unfortunate combination of circumstances made the fuel-air mixture at that point very sensitive to ignition. The crew of a nearby aircraft witnessed the incident so there can be little doubt that the cause was lightning.

[Capt. Crosswind]

Flash2001
Well that answers the original question.
A colleague remembers that accident & thinks it was a B707.
He says FAA called up a mod for a "flame arrestor" in the fuel vent system for all FAR25 acft as a fix.