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To: blackdog
Uhm........not so. The metal chasis on the frame is poorly grounded. Sure there is some carbon in the synthetic rubber tires to do some good, but from a technical standpoint to techno-geeks, your car is just a giant capacitor during an EMP and it will go "POP" when the pulse charges it up. It cannot discharge that fast.

Hmmm, I often wonder about that. I know many cars from the 1960's had grounding strips behind them, I remember seeing them when I was a kid. I'm into the post nuclear war role playing game, "The Morrow Project," and this topic comes up from time to time where we get into a grat debate over it. One of my gamer friends had a link to an article where EMP's effect is overstated although things like the power grid and anything with a huge antenna would be game. I guess the moral of the story is if you are that paranoid, buy an extra computer module, wrap it in aluminum foil, place it in a Faraday cage and there ya go. Then if something bad happens and it is fried, take out the old one and put in the new one and there ya go.

I've been hit by lightning while flying and can tell you that energy will really do some interesting things. It made pinholes where it hit, but then inside it made what I can only describe as ball lightning which would seek corners where it would sort of oscillate and then dim. It lasted about five full seconds before the skin managed to discharge in the air.

How did it affect the electronics in the plane? Just curious.
125 posted on 01/04/2005 5:37:18 PM PST by Nowhere Man (We have enough youth, how about a Fountain of Smart?)
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To: Nowhere Man
It seemed to have less effect than my second com radio when I transmit. When I key the mike on the Narco Com 11, the entire avionics panel goes innop on guidance reception for as long as the transmission and about two seconds after. If you're chatting a lot with center, you'll miss an intercept real easy. Center tells me that everytime I key the push to talk, my squawk disappears along with altitude reporting mode C. Radio is clear as a bell though and not a spit of static, so it's a keeper.

The lighning strike didn't do much permanent damage except reskinning a section of fuselage. Not a single breaker popped. I think it melted the wiring in my pitot heater though because the next time I turned it on it exploded, again though, perfect breakers. I have never had a single breaker ever pop on an airplane! And let's face it, they are endless in number. Sometimes I wonder just what would kick one out?

126 posted on 01/04/2005 5:48:11 PM PST by blackdog (May Islam meet Tennyson's "Ninth Wave" in my lifetime.)
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