Thank you for the photos Doug. Had a AH-1S “MOD” Cobra sitting on the pad get hit by lightning one night. Bird was parked so no one was in it. The lightning hit the tail rotor blade blowing a softball sized hole in it. The lightning then proceeded into the vertical stabilizer, through the tail boom, the fuselage and then out the chin turret. Charred the concrete in front of the bird. Fortunately the bird was fully fueled, no space for vapors in the fuel tanks, and unarmed. Magnetized the airframe. We tried to degauss it but could not get it down to a flyable level. Last I knew it was headed for someone’s permanent static ground display.
One year at National Guard AT lightning hit a pine tree at dear old Camp Shelby that was so close you could smell it. First reaction was to run into a APC track, wasn’t sure I had not run into the interior of a lightning rod, went and got in the jeep.
I am sure if I get it on me it will cause a terrible rash.
I unfortunately have been very close to two lightning strikes in my life. Both incidents happened very close to Bend Oregon. We were walking on the path by Sunriver Golf Course and there was a tremendous FLASH!!! and an immediate THUNDER CLAP!!, that caused me to SCREAM! and I thought my heart had stopped! I will never forget the Black Lab that ran past us, like his tail was on fire. Why in the heck that thunder cell was in that area, I will never understand, because the 3 Sisters and Mt. Bachelor, which were 15-20 miles away, should have been the likely thunderstorm area. The second strike was on a path along the Deschutes river, close to Bend, and again, I can’t understand why the cloud was over our heads, because most of the central Oregon thunderstorms I have seen, related to the mountains, not the flat desert area.
It’s like having a huge flash bulb go off, in your face, followed by an ear splitting, explosive crack of thunder, right on your head!
Doug
Several year ago I was at Intl. Assn. of Arson Investigators seminar they had the head of the electrical engineering department make a presentation explaining the difference in electrical short fires and lightning strikes. He had been involved in research on lightning and explained that lightning frequently strike golf courses as they are well watered and fertilized creating a good field of electrical potential. Lightning is an arc between fields varying potential. I may not have stated that exactly techinically correct but basically you have a strong negative field on one end of the bolt and a strong positive field on the other, vioila lightning!
