Helicopter Static Charge?
You need the right conditions - and a cause for the "potential" excess of electrons one way or the other. Dry powder snow is frictional or a thunderstorm within ~ 20 miles will help. Doing seismic we would sit and wait it out if a thunderstorm nearby for a couple of reasons, giving the ground crew belts, which you sometimes would see the spark and hear it on the radio, plus lighting up the recording electronics and jugs or electric dets and bombs was a potential issue. Also surprising how fast it builds up after discharge, literally seconds after grounding it's good to go again. Badge of honour for juggy's as to how hard they were! Funny looking down the longline to see people sit down so quickly!
To add to my post that was resurrected......the linked file describes the device the US Army spent loads of money in developing, testing, fielding, and very quickly discarding....that I described earlier.
Memory serves me it stuck out on the port side of the helicopter and looked like a wee short wing shaped device....on our aircraft it had ribs rather than the two prongs and something that at first glance could have been. mistaken for a position light at the tip.
We could never see any useful effect from it and in not much time it was deactivated and ultimately removed.
There were reported events of injury and at least one death from inadvertent discharge from parked aircraft which lead to the device being removed.
Dry, dusty conditions and prolonged hovering in a Chinook does cause a large build up of static electricity that can make the shortest military haircut stand upright.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0664201.pdf
Some interesting photos in this article.....with an interesting textual account of why the helicopters were operating there.
There photographer notes how the static display around the blades change with the amount of pitch applied to the blades and the ramp touching the ground.
There should be static wicks that hang down between the tires of the landing gear unless there has been a mod since I flew them.
Hats off to t he Crews and to the Troops they were supporting!
https://realitypod.com/story/helicop...corona-effect/
Memory serves me it stuck out on the port side of the helicopter and looked like a wee short wing shaped device....on our aircraft it had ribs rather than the two prongs and something that at first glance could have been. mistaken for a position light at the tip.
We could never see any useful effect from it and in not much time it was deactivated and ultimately removed.
There were reported events of injury and at least one death from inadvertent discharge from parked aircraft which lead to the device being removed.
Dry, dusty conditions and prolonged hovering in a Chinook does cause a large build up of static electricity that can make the shortest military haircut stand upright.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0664201.pdf
Some interesting photos in this article.....with an interesting textual account of why the helicopters were operating there.
There photographer notes how the static display around the blades change with the amount of pitch applied to the blades and the ramp touching the ground.
There should be static wicks that hang down between the tires of the landing gear unless there has been a mod since I flew them.
Hats off to t he Crews and to the Troops they were supporting!
https://realitypod.com/story/helicop...corona-effect/
Last edited by SASless; 14th Dec 2023 at 23:21.
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Many moons ago I worked for a company that did lift work in the San Francisco Bay area with a couple of S58Ts. I got to climb up the suspension cable on the Oakland Bay bridge to lift some steel and painting supplies to the top of one of the towers, about 600 feet off the water. It was awesome fun. At the finish of the job I was not looking forward to the walk down, looking at the water and bridge deck the whole way, so the pilot asked if I wanted to be picked up on top of the tower. I happily said yes. There was a platform just big enough to set a wheel down and give me 6 or 8 feet to approach the ship and hop into the cargo door. No guard rail anywhere at all the very top. You guessed it, I grabbed the door handle and was knocked to my knees by the visible mini bolt of lightning, I hit the step outside the door, . I even knew better, it wasn't my first rodeo. Without a ground strap my normal modus was to slap the hook hard enough to hurt so I didn't notice the shock so much. Young and dumb.
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RAF Pumas used to have little short ones on the blades, prior to that the had longer items, one of which snaped off during a Rotors turning refuel and iirc burying itself in a Rocks head, hence the change, the Rock survived.
Avoid imitations
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Yes, I remember that, I was on that squadron at the time. The static wicks on the blades were part of the tip cap and were deleted when composite blades replaced the old metal type.
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Thr RAF regiment are referred to as Rock Apes and at Odiham used to do site defence etc in the field, but during the rest of the time they would drive the aircraft refuellers, IIRC the longer static wicks that used to fail and nobody had problems with before this one, detached and hit him in the head, I seem to remember it penetrated his skull and he was flown to hospital ( by the aircraft he refuelled? )
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