Lightning strike

denverpilot

denverpilot

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DenverPilot
First time I've seen these photos. If they've already made the rounds previously, apologies.

Think this crew probably needed a change of underwear?

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A few inches more and that pilot probably would be changing more than his underwear..
 
I'll bet that woke the captain up from his nap!:D
 
I am curious if the windshield heat was on, and if it is routed through that part of the cockpit. Somewhere in my pile of stuff I have a similar photo of the rear portion of our #4 nacelle. Got nailed about halfway between Barbers Point and Johnston Island. A small fire, a spate of arcing and it was over. Luckily we had lots of time to get our pulse rates down and shorts cleaned before landing!!! :yikes:
 
I question the photos authenticity: Usually, when struck by lightning, aircraft damage happens to parts of the aircraft that don't conduct electricity; not the parts that can spread and disapate the charge. Airplanes, and particularly airliners are designed and constructed to prevent such events. They are electrically connected from radome to tailcone with lighning protection strips on the nose, bonding straps as well as metal (conductive) structure and static disapators on many trailing edges.

An airliner I was flying got struck by lightning once. Southern California, of all places. I was descending for a landing in Carlsbad and in light (dim) of a very ominous looking sky, was paying close attention to the radar, but didn't detect any precip, when ZAPPO...a brilliant white snap of a bolt hit us on the radome. My copilot and I were like, whoa! It knocked the RH generator offline, but we couldn't see any other damage, and we simply reset the generator and landed. Mechanics had to conduct a 2hr inspection of the airplane...look at every bonding strap for damage. Save for a dime-sized black mark on the radome, there wasn't any.
 
Not lightning, but electrical fire on the ground. These have appeared elsewhere on the web in the past with the real story.
 
Yellowbird said:
Not lightning, but electrical fire on the ground. These have appeared elsewhere on the web in the past with the real story.
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That make a lot more sense. Given the "lightning damage" caption I had assumed this was a composite structure with inadequate conductivity (even though it looked like riveted aluminum) or a freak, really high energy bolt.

I did get to see first hand how lightning can damage an aircraft at the entry/exit point though. NASA had a F-106 they were using to study the susceptibility of aircraft surfaces to lightning damage and there were fist sized chunks missing from the trailing edges of the wing.
 
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One of our P-3's had a ball lightning incident that blew a hole in the mad boom (stinger-looking tail) when it exited. Scared the **** out of the AWs, and we had to replace the housing, but it didn't cause major damage.

When we were deployed to Kadena a VQ-1 EP-3B landed with two engines feathered after flying through a hailstorm---that was major damage. Our guys repaired what they could, covered the leading edge dents with high-strength duct tape and sent the aircraft back to Guam---wouldn't surprise me if they removed the electronics and scrapped it.
 
I question the photos authenticity: Usually, when struck by lightning, aircraft damage happens to parts of the aircraft that don't conduct electricity; not the parts that can spread and disapate the charge.
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I've seldom had much damage to non-conductive parts, but have had holes burned through control surfaces, fuel tanks, propellers, and the fuselage. I've had bolts and rivets smoking and damaged. I've had engines that needed to be removed and degaussing that was necessary.

Most of the time lightening doesn't do much. Sometimes it can do significant damage.
 
Hey guys considering how close that strike was to the pilot I'd like to know if he suffered any injury? How about the sound of the strike?
 
The entire trailing edge of a 3-blade T-210 prop blade appeared to be sound after landing following a strike, but when touched it crumbled into powder and fell into a pile beneath the blade. Not my plane, but I happened to be the one who touched it since the guy asked for help in looking for damage. Only other evidence as a small hole in the trailing edge of the r/h flap ~a foot outboard of the wing root.
 
wabower said:
The entire trailing edge of a 3-blade T-210 prop blade appeared to be sound after landing following a strike, but when touched it crumbled into powder and fell into a pile beneath the blade. Not my plane, but I happened to be the one who touched it since the guy asked for help in looking for damage. Only other evidence as a small hole in the trailing edge of the r/h flap ~a foot outboard of the wing root.
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Wow. Either you're really good at finding damage, or I don't want you touching my plane!
 
The project magnet bird (super Connie) would get hit every time it let the magnetometer out 5 miles and 2500' below the tow bird. the drogue had a 100' piece of copper cable as a sacrificial static discharge trailing it, in a 12 hours hop this would get burned off to 10-20 feet.
 
Nobody was more surprised than me. I was just checking for surface irregularities by rubbing the edges of the blades when a chunk about half the circumference of my thumb broke away and turned to dust. Say what?

Sac Arrow said:
Wow. Either you're really good at finding damage, or I don't want you touching my plane!
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