Since it just came up again, I am considering what if anything we can do by way of rules/guidelines/technique to deal with shocks through the lines.
For those not present, the event that shut us down in the Top 5 flyoff was actually electrical shocks. Howard got significant shocks on his second-round flight and chose to fly out the flight level. Afterwards, he told the judges that he got shocked and it was too dangerous to continue, but apparently this was dismissed. Then David went out for his flight and same thing happened, and then we called it off. For a while it looked like they were going to count Howard's flight, but I think it all amounted to a misunderstanding and Howard's opinion was blown off.
This is hardly the first time we have had a situation like this. At the 93 NATs on Top 20 day, Paul was very notably getting shocked all way down to his feet, where the arc jumped from his foot, around the edge of his shoe, and then to the ground. This was also as storm was very obviously moving in. Lesser known example was from 93 NATs practice (I think Sunday) where Bob Whitely and Lucky Pyatt were out flying with a *huge* thunderstorm moving in. My brother and I warned them about it, and Whitelyblew it off, and said something to the effect that "the lines will burn through before it kills you", apparently not noticing that the lightning was already jumping 5 miles through clear air. We went off-site, where in town lightning was striking every stationary object in Lawrenceville, IL. I see Lucky at appearance judging and he has bandages on all the knuckles of his right hand. I ask him what happened, and apparently a few minutes after we left, he had been flying and a huge discharge jumped from the bar on his Baron handle to his fingers and blown/burned all the skin off.
Again, 2004 WC, storm was moving in and everyones hair, even mine, was standing on end just standing in the pits. I suggested that we stop, but we kept going and several people were getting very nervous. Even Billy was half-scared to go, but it was his turn and with no one saying he could delay for lightning, he had to go anyway. Then about halfway through the flight, then, finally, someone saw lightning and the contest was called. There's another case, like the NATs, where we probably should have not let several of those flights go due to obvious possibility of danger.
Static can build up even in clear air, but is not dangerous, just annoying, and the usual fix is to wrap a ground wire around the handle to continuously bleed off the charge, rather than having it build up and then jump the smallest gap and give harmless shock, like rubbing your feet on the carpet. But with approaching storms (or nearby electrical sources*) or visible or audible lightning, the normal charge in the air is greatly increased, and of course, lightning is possible.
It's not always a problem, I was flying my Top 20 flight in 2015 and we heard the first audible thunder that day about halfway through my vertical 8, and I got nothing out-of-the-ordinary on that flight and I finished with no problems. But we stopped the contest for a while until that storm passed through.
In this years NATs case, apparently no one really paid attention to what Howard told them and maybe thought he just needed some grounding. This despite having very ominious looking "mamma" clouds that almost always indicate impending or just-passed severe thunderstorms from horizon-to-horizon all morning.
We need to do something, rules-wise, guideline-wise, to deal with this because I think we have just been lucky not to get someone killed. Other sensitive activities (like a rocket launch) have criteria like lighting within 5 miles (NASA and Air Force, after Apollo 12 got struck by lightning *twice* shortly after launch, the lightning hitting the rocket and then using a discharge path through the ionized exhaust), audible thunder, etc. The problem I see with this is that we need some reliable way of detecting it other than sending Howard up as a field strength meter. The AMA has generally attempted to monitor weather radar and give a warning, but it obviously did not work this time, for whatever reason.
At the very least we should have some accepted method of taking pilot reports, and allowing "wave offs" with no penalty if the situation is serious enough. The problem with that is that you have to somehow be able to deal with the possibility of tactical wave-offs, or evaluating the seriousness between "cat fur and amber" static and dangerous charge buildup and lightning.
It almost suggests we need a field strength meter at the site, which might be OK for the NATs, but what about the rest of the time?
I am open to suggestions, I am not sure whether this needs to be a rule somewhere, or just have some guidelines, or what, but we can;t just keep taking our chances and hoping no one gets killed.
Brett
*note that this can be a problem even if you don't touch power lines, or other sources directly. Corona discharge from high-tension lines can easily cause large voltage gradients that you can pick up across 70 feet of line. The Napa site is directly across the street from a 100 KW FM transmitter with 4 large antennas, and you have to ground your handle or you will get zapped over and over again.
Topic: Dealing with electrical shocks (Read 1872 times)