By submitting this form, you are agreeing to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
From electrostatic buildup to critical equipment failures, the effects of an aircraft lightning strike can be catastrophic.
The lightning protection testing services help ensure that, in the event of a direct strike, the electronics, equipment and materials continue to perform without failure.
While the increased use of composite materials has made more lightweight and efficient structures, it also means that equipment is more vulnerable to aircraft lightning strike. As a result, test standards have evolved and become more stringent.
Lightning usually strikes an aircraft on the front side of the plane’s cockpit. The edge of the cockpit window is a typical point of impact.
The aluminium fuselage of the aircraft conducts electricity well, and due to that, the lightning discharge does not affect the inside of the aircraft.
The discharge travels onwards along the outer surface of the aircraft and exits again into the atmosphere, typically from the tips of the wing, control surfaces or the tail of the aircraft.
In aviation, safety always comes first. For an aircraft type approval to be granted, the aircraft manufacturer must demonstrate through extensive certification tests that the aircraft’s lightning protection is sufficient. Due to careful testing, the passengers and equipment inside the aircraft are safe.
The Global Aircraft Lightning Strike Testing market accounted for $XX Billion in 2022 and is anticipated to reach $XX Billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of XX% from 2023 to 2030.
Avionics’s New Method to Protect Aircraft From Lightning Strikes While the possibility of an aircraft being struck by lightning is rare and does not present a threat to flight crews or pilots, aircraft manufacturers are looking to improve their current level of understanding of the interaction between aircraft and lightning.
A new study published by several researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) department of aeronautics presents a theory that providing aircraft with a mechanism for becoming more electrically charged internally when the threat of a lightning strike is present would actually reduce their risk of being struck by lightning.
The study proposes a the future use of an onboard system that could better protect an aircraft from a lightning strike by electrically charging it — a theory that the researchers admit seems counterintuitive on its surface.
Their theory stems from their analysis of what occurs when an aircraft flies through an ambient electric field. According to the experts, the aircraft’s external electrical state becomes more polarized with one end of the aircraft becoming more positively charged and the other becoming more negatively charged.
The increased state of polarization can set off a positive leader, which the researchers describe as a highly conductive flow of plasma that can serve as a preceding stage to a lightning strike.
