Monday, February 12, 2018

Static electricity discharge experienced by an Airbus over Argentina

4 comments:

  1. Nice !!
    read this post:
    http://quasartechsciencie.blogspot.com.ar/2017/07/2014-mu69-es-observado-desde-argentina.html

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  2. CW, saw this discharge quite often in volcanic dust,snow and rain on the super connies and warning stars. front cockpit windows were NESA glass(electrically heated by way of internal layer of conductive material powered from the AC buss). what with static charge build up on the airframe the windows acted like large capacitors. when the voltage got high enough, the arc would flash over the glass to ground. quite disturbing to junior pilots. carried lots of static eliminator wicks on the trailing edges and lightning rods on the tip tanks.

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    Replies
    1. My hat's off to you for driving those things, helped maintain an 'H' for a while. NESA buss was locked out, no need.

      greenman

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  3. We used to get this effect fairly often in the South Pacific flying DC-10s. When there was some high, dry cirrus clouds at night the static would build up and discharge across the windscreens. On ships the effect is called St. Elmos fire.
    We would turn the flightdeck lights way down and then invite a new flight attendant up and act really concerned about the lightning display. It was sure to freak them out for awhile.
    It is actually very beautiful and harmless to the airplane. Good work to this crew for getting video.

    ScottJ

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