Drones v Lightning or visa versa

[Point Zero]

 

[Former Member]

21st century lightning rod. If you do try this, use a Phantom 3, then who cares if it is destroyed lol

 

[Point Zero]

21st century lightning rod. If you do try this, use a Phantom 3, then who cares if it is destroyed lol

hahahaha lol dude

 

[dirkclod]

Wonder what DJI would say if they sent that back in for repair

 

[Former Member]

Wonder what DJI would say if they sent that back in for repair

Probably depend on how bad the scorch marks are... lol

 

[Point Zero]

You would have thought with the type of pilots dji drones sometimes attracts that we would have had some footage of real lightning strikes, but i guess all the evidence always ends up getting fried lol

 

[Former Member]

You would have thought with the type of pilots dji drones sometimes attracts that we would have had some footage of real lightning strikes, but i guess all the evidence always ends up getting fried lol

This might account for many of the incidents of spontaneous human combustion. Sometimes all thats left of the person is a smokey patch from where they once stood. If a pilot wants go fly his/her drone in a lightning storm? By all means do! Just let your wife know where youre going so they can look for your remains. They might find a controller with your fingerprints on it where you were last standing.

 

[sar104]

Wonder what DJI would say if they sent that back in for repair

Probably depend on how bad the scorch marks are... lol

The subsequent inspection was quite revealing:

Inside the drone – the effects of being struck by lightning - Science and Engineering

 

[dirkclod]

Thanks and about what I thought that would have done . Wonder if it had had a wet suit on if it would have saved it
jk

 

[FoxhallGH]

The subsequent inspection was quite revealing:

Inside the drone – the effects of being struck by lightning - Science and Engineering

It was left as just a 'phantom' of its former self!

 

[sar104]

Thanks and about what I thought that would have done . Wonder if it had had a wet suit on if it would have saved it
jk

Of course. It's my understanding that those will protect against anything - guns, lightning, nearby nuclear blasts etc.

 

[Ken K]

Of course. It's my understanding that those will protect against anything - guns, lightning, nearby nuclear blasts etc.

You forgot the need to recalibrate your compass.

 

[radman]

Thanks and about what I thought that would have done . Wonder if it had had a wet suit on if it would have saved it
jk

At 1.6 million electron volts a wet suit would not have helped, unless it was several inches thick! When I was in high school I built a Van de Graaff generator that produced about 400,000 volts and made nice 26-inch long sparks. I also got to operate a 2 million volt positive ion Van de Graaff particle accelerator at work. The high voltage terminal was enclosed in a pressure vessel filled with sulfur hexafluoride gas to act as an electrical insulator. Occasionally we would have a really loud spark inside the tank, and then we would have to disassemble everything and clean off the carbon tracks on the insulators.

 

[JSKCKNIT]

That was cool to see! I thought it would explode as well. [emoji851]

 

[sar104]

At 1.6 million electron volts a wet suit would not have helped, unless it was several inches thick! When I was in high school I built a Van de Graaff generator that produced about 400,000 volts and made nice 26-inch long sparks. I also got to operate a 2 million volt positive ion Van de Graaff particle accelerator at work. The high voltage terminal was enclosed in a pressure vessel filled with sulfur hexafluoride gas to act as an electrical insulator. Occasionally we would have a really loud spark inside the tank, and then we would have to disassemble everything and clean off the carbon tracks on the insulators.

It wouldn't matter how thick it was unless it covered the motors and had quite remarkable dielectric properties. That was not a serious question.

 

[AMann]

It wouldn't matter how thick it was unless it covered the motors and had quite remarkable dielectric properties. That was not a serious question.

Love the physics discussed in this thread- a couple inches of rubber is no match to the 30 or so feet of air that the arc crossed.

Kids- don’t try this at home: connect a 300’ or longer very small gage (thin) speaker coil wire to your drone and ground the other end in the Earth. Fire your drone straight up, unspooling the wire as you go, into a mature Cumulonimbus cell with active lighting and wait for the light and sound show. I’ve seen it done with disposable model rockets, has anyone done it yet with a drone?

 

[grendeljaeger]

Wonder what DJI would say if they sent that back in for repair

"Sorry we can not fix this. Who do you think we are Thunderdrones?"

 

[Goldengate98]

so the conclusion of the video is that flying your drone where lightening strikes are possible is a bad idea? Well who woulda ever guessed!?

 

[Cdcolt]

It wouldn't matter how thick it was unless it covered the motors and had quite remarkable dielectric properties. That was not a serious question.

Consider also that an actual lightning strike will generate up to hundreds of millions of electron volts.

The subsequent inspection was quite revealing:

Inside the drone – the effects of being struck by lightning - Science and Engineering

Consider also that an actual lightning strike could generate hundreds of millions of electron volts.

 

[sar104]

Consider also that an actual lightning strike will generate up to hundreds of millions of electron volts.

Are you referring to the total strike voltage? An electron volt is a unit of energy in particle physics, and while lightning can act as a particle accelerator for cosmic rays, it only accelerates them up to the keV range. And if you did mean voltage, total path voltage is not really the issue - breakdown is just driven by local field strength.