Are you going to make it to Stomlo while you’re over here?

I wish! I love Australia, but my family needs me at home, so home I go! Eventually it’ll be practical to drag them along with me, but I learned from experience that taking the kids through that many time zones isn’t worth it for less than a month. I guess I’ll just have to come back for a month! I brought back some “Honey Soy Chicken Flavored” potato chips as a joke, and my oldest kid thought they were the most delicious thing to have passed over her tongue, so she’s probably game.

Evidently the pilot turned the engine off within a few seconds after taking the bird in, and there was no further mishap. They told us about a minute afterwards that they were going to turn around.

However, while I was deplaning, I saw the engine itself, and let me just say it was shocking. The Blades of the engine were completely warped from the impact. So yea its dangerous, even though it was not that apparent.

Planes have to meet lightning standards. As well as most items in the planes. Not only the effects of being hit by lightning, but also the EM fields made by lightning. They are tested extensively.

If the tests are anything like certifications for dangers and interference from electronics equipment, it will cover standardized situations but are no guarantee. Especially fault situations are carefully considered, but are always individual for the equipments construction.

It is virtually impossible to protect against or cover every situation. And most of the tests will assume that the equipment is used and serviced correctly due to that.

Besides, I’m not sure if models of lightning and lightning effects have improved much lately, but the models I was taught once was decidedly rather primitive. OTOH, the course included visiting a research facility, and seeing the simulated lightning hits up close were even more fun than a real thunder storm. ))

Inside the World of Mileage Running

Assembling a mileage run means deciphering complex fare rules and pulling together information from up to a dozen websites. It’s an achievement that tickles the same satisfying problem-solving centers of the brain as a Sudoku puzzle, and always ends in the deep-rooted human thrills of travel and flight.

Conference hopping seems to be a good preparation for that, eh? Though I have to say I wouldn’t fly back and forth to LHR four times in a row, not even if you’d promise me the next Nobel prize.

Best,

B.

i hadn’t thought about the plane scenario but it is nice to know! one less thing to worry about!

Evan

Juliane, hope you have a good time at the conference in Sydney.

As for the Boeing 787, one of the layers of the composite skin is actually a copper mesh, so worry not.

CraigD

But never mind jumbos
Have you ever been on these smaller planes where the pilot can’t get the cabin pressure right and descends too steeply — you look around and see the rest of the passengers sitting there dumbstruck — thinking the pain is Normal.
You’d think some would go to the cockpit and scream in the pilots ear, but I guess fear of being confused as a terrorist (and shot by the air marshall) or being accused of being drunk and abusive (and thrown off the plane), keeps passengers patiently gritting their teeth and trying to swallow hard.
And we pay for this – even if it is cheap air travel it should be pain free.
Mind you so should dentistry & surgery – but there are lots of saddists out there who like to cause pain – and charge you for the pleasure!

Yet planes affected by lightning seems to be virtually nonexistent. In spite of that airplanes that flies through storms frequently gets hit. Airliners avoids storms and seems to get hit about twice a year. Wikipedia notes that more powerful positive lightning has damaged planes.