Over the course of my flying career I've experienced it dozens of times, but only once copped a lightning strike.

It can be mesmerising on a clear, quiet night [Canberra over the N Sea] - the intercepting lightning collected a belt that slightly damaged his airframe. Certainly more extensive and spectacular close to thunderstorms in the Med.

I've found it more prevalent on screens fitted with gold film heating, for whatever reason...

In the Vickers funbus, in my experience, the windscreens went blue around the edges, and a blue collar was seen around the probe, but in the scarebus I fly in now, it more like a plasma ball!

AlexF,

Sometimes when you expect to see lots of St. Elmo's Fire you simply don't see anything at all. On the other hand, on a flight out of London a few years ago, we had lots of St. Elmo's Fire despite no returns from any weather on the radar. As a result, I don't think St. Elmo's Fire is something you can predict with any certainty.

Whilst you're investigating St. Elmo's Fire why don't you also have a look at 'plasma balls' which are seen following a lightning strike on an aircraft. They are usually about 12" in diameter and travel down the cabin from nose to tail at about waist height. Just like St. Elmo's Fire they are the result of a gas being turned into a plasma (ie. an ionized gas) by a high voltage.

Elmos Fire
 

Alex F

Your'e right, these boys make a living out of flying into hell & back, they are certifiably mad !

I have seen St Elmo once , a few years ago on a stormy night in a C130. It was without a doubt one of the spookiest things that I have ever seen. It manifested itself as arcing across the front window panels. I wont deny that I have an active imagination, but it seemed to resemble fingers of luminescent green, creeping across the windows, it was beautiful in a strange way, but also served to remind one of their vulnerability at such times.

If you publish your research, let us know, I for one would be interested.

CRPxGood !

I’ve seen St Elmo’s on several occasions when instructing on the old JP. In those days we often blundered into cunims at night: radar cover was minimal, the flying had to be done, and there was a much more robust attitude to risk anyway. You could impress the hell out of your stude by holding out your hand towards the windscreen and getting long plasma streamers from each finger tip. A great conversation stopper!

Alex F
Seen it so many times on the Nimrod MR2. I suggest you contact the Kinloss PRO. Think it's still Dawn. Maybe she can get you on a jet...it's a "good" time of year for rubbish (cb) weather! Can't remember the extension number, but 01309 672161 will give you a good start.

Seen it about 8 times in the last 9 months!! Flying TPs in the UK. Not always associated with CB activity. fairly commonplace really.:ok:

Back in '95 I was a nav on a 130K flight from Akrotiri via Adana to Nairobi, our route took us virtually over Khartoum. Due to an air traffic delay at the Adana flag stop the sun was already setting as we coasted in North of Cairo, the forecast weather gave us no cause for concern, even with our flight some 2 hours later than planned.

It was a clear night with nothing showing on the radar, the previous day the weather had been fine from Lyneham to Cyprus so there hadn't been a chance to check the '190 on anything other than rocks. As we headed South the stars started to become less distinct, until all that was visible was a soft grey glow, the lack of populated areas on the ground, we had passed Khartoum by now, meant there was very little by which to check the cloud density.

After a few minutes of zero visibility the ride became subject to turbulence, and the wipers started to attract St Elmo's fire. Gradually a rattling noise became ever stronger, until it seemed as though someone were firing a machine gun at us, the cupola had a thick build up of ice as hailstones about the size of marbles started to stick rather than deflect. As the ride grew ever choppier the St Elmo's fire spread to the probe, on looking out of the windows we saw that the wings themselves were glowing blue. It was around this time we surmised that the '190 probably wasn't showing us all that its designer had intended.

That night we all got very, very drunk.

Seen it a few times, just never quite covering the entire airframe as in this case!

Saw it once in the tin triangle letting down into Finningley at night through the slot in the airway - can't remember what height the slot was now but about 15 to 20k feet I think. We were not aware of any cb activity but since you couldn't see much out of the aircraft that may be an unreliable statement.

We had been told about St Elmo's fire but no-one told us it was associated with danger so we thought it looked very pretty. It just outlined the windscreen but I do not recall what colour.

ACW

Seen St Elmos fire many times. A purple sparking glow on the nose of the plane seen lighting upwards on the windscreen. From the cabin can be seen (more faintly) dancing on the leading edge. Probability and statistically you need to fly a good number of hours in your career to see the stuff. The chances are it'll be close to a TS, in very moist unstable air. Struck by lightning with no St Elmos fire beforehand though, and seen some really impressive SE fire without any lightning flashes too.

Saw it many times as a flight mechanic on tristars sometimes used to discharge through the cabin real attention getter, I remember one time we had a pax in the cockpit who was a target banner towing pilot flying lears out of Naples he told me that if they encountered it they had to cut the tow cable or it woukld discharge in the cabin with a loud bang!!

Sorry guys and gals of the military. Have spent hours flying with St Elmo in the tropics, in cruise, in civil aircraft.

I've experienced it many times, usually associated with light rain close to the freezing level and rarely around storms, definitely prevalent in the tropics though. Plexiglass windscreens seem to attract it more, I thought it was worse on older machines and put it down to static wicks being past their use-by date.

I too have seen St Elmo's fire a few times in a C130.

The last time was the most spectacular. We were flying somewhere over North Western Pakistan up at 330 avoiding thunderstorms. We had just passed a really large cell and were out of the cloud.

Initially, on the windows just by the wipers, green snakes of light dancing up the screen. I thought the window had cracked as they looked like they were arcing.

Then the colour changed from green to blue to magenta, and the whole probe, all the windows and the leading edges of the wings were alight with little spikes of lightening.

The noise became quite deafening, sparking, the copilot was shiittiing himself and screaming and then the most beautiful sight - the probe gave off an amazing canopy like someone had just opened an umbrella of purple sparklers all radial and focused on the probe.

Wish I had my camera

Same as 4Greens, I have seen it many times flying a civil aircraft (airbus). It was awesome and mesmorising the first time I saw it. Very cool. I believe it is the discharce of static built up by the friction of ice crystals rubbing together or on the airframe that causes it, and it is at least for me unpredictable. I guess it has to do with the different altitudes flown by the military guys due to different a/c that means they don't see it often, because I guarantee you that all the people I fly with see it quite regularly.......

I also have seen it much more out of the UK and around the ITCZ, frequently the E / W descent in / out of Japan seems to produce a lot of St Elmos. The problem is, you could fly 100 times in the area and never get it or fly 5 trips and see it 5 times! Like most things in nature, this will require many hours of nothing video and then all of a sudden it will be there. Problem also is that you would have to get cockpit access the whole time, probably not possible in these times. I suggest getting the help fom an airline and getting them to carry your camera on a certain route for a few months and see if they are willing to shoot it for you if they will?
Rgds

Sat in the back of an Otter floatplane on our way back to Goose Bay from a fishing trip in '79. Windows start to spark from corners to middle, sparking grows rapidly into what looked like a furnace, spectacular but rather scary so we all tightened our seatbelts, then an almighty bang as God's big spark hit us on the prop, engine goes quiet. Looked forward, pilots working like one armed paper hangers to get the mighty Pratt working again. Never got to say thanks guys, but still very grateful!:ok:
R2

I have seen it regularly in my relatively short career on hercs. I even filmed it through NVGs two nights ago. Looks awesome. Unfortunately, as I am in the sandpit, it will be very very difficult to get to you :-( If your TV prog is being aired after the end of march I can get a clip to you if required.

First time it happened we had two inches deep of "fire" across the windscreen, props and wings, with a greeney-purple tinge, as we flew between two ENOURMOUS cells round Nice/Monaco region. It discharged as a lightning bolt along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. Very eerie, and the distortion on the radio adds to the tenseness of the situation! Oh, we temporarily lost the wx radar, which was nice!

4 Greens. There was me thinking this was a military forum.......!:confused:

Basingstoke multiplex cinema, 1985 ish. :}