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#11
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In article . com,
jeplane writes There is an article in this month of "Business & Commercial Aviation" regarding lightning. It says that in 1999, a ASK21 desintegrated large sections of the fuselage, while flying in clear air, about 800 yards from a cloud. Both pilots were ejected from the strike, but fortunately were wearing parachutes. The same article goes on to say fiberglass, especially carbon fiber is conductive. So if you are on the ground and a thunderstorm is over the airport, to seek shelter inside a building and NOT inside the glider which has no protection. Has nayone heard this before? Do you know someone who had a lightning strike in a glider before? I am just curious as I never heard of this before. I would have thought that if fibreglass was conductive it would protect you from the Thunder God. But it isn't, at least not to the extent that it could carry the heavy current a lightening strike produces without getting hot enough to disintegrate. The K21 which was destroyed near the London Gliding Club's Dunstable site had some control rods which took so much current they more or less exploded, much like a fuse wire when it takes about 50 times it's rated load. This explosion blew the skin off the wings. I once read a book about a glider which fell apart in a Cu-nim in Germany, the pilot was killed because his parachute carried him up to even higher levels. But I don't know if this was due to lightening, or over-stressing the airframe. I believe this happened in about 1928. I wish I could remember the name of the book and its author, it was what got me into gliding in the first place. -- Mike Lindsay |
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