carbon fiber lightning

Jimmy, yes, it is the metal container that projects you. Read up on a Faraday Cage. It would be best to get to the center of the passenger compartment and the farthest away from the metal on the outside.

It is OK if people think about the car's rubber tires as the protection, but it is mostly the metal chassis that provides the protection. Think about that if you ever consider a fiberglass body car.

–B.G.–

The ideal is for the front half to be metal, and the rear half to be fiberglass. Then the lightning gets the serial killer who's always hiding on the back seat when somebody gets into a car in a thunderstorm.

Bob, I think I get your train of thought on folks believing the tires are doing part in protecting them in that as long as they look at the vehicle as a safe harbor to shelter from the storm…..except of course those convertible owners and cyclists. "YIKES" Might be handy they know more accurately what is saving their bacon.

Thanks for clarifying my post with the proper name of the cage I saw in use. It was a pretty cool display and a great lesson of real science busting myths.

As I'm writing this post another incident comes to mind while flying in a pretty good electrical storm. We were going along with a bit of turbulence as one would expect and then BAM! out of nowhere it sounded like someone took a shot with a sledge hammer to the top of the plane just forward of us. I often wondered if, and assumed, that may have been a lightning strike. I was going to question the pilot on it as I passed by the open cockpit but as I looked at her in the doorway her forehead was covered in sweat and I decided she may not be in the mood for small talk. I had seen that look only once before while working at BDL airport on a pilots face having just been hit in a microburst. Both looked sincerely joyful to be on the ground. :)

jimmyb

Where lightning is concerned, all bets are off. I had a power pole in the back yard take a direct lightning hit about ten days ago. I wasn't aware of it when it happened, but there was an intense lightning storm that night. The next morning, I noticed a piece of wood in the back yard and couldn't figure out where it had come from. As I walked over, I could see that the top of the pole was splintered and there were pieces of pole shrapnel fifty feet away. Apparently, there was moisture in the pole and the energy of the lightning strike turned the moisture to steam, which caused the top of the pole to explode. I was fortunate in that the damage was minimal. I lost a radio and a couple of battery chargers and the pole, while damaged, was still serviceable. There is so much energy in a lightning strike that the extent of the damage is really unpredictable. That particular pole did not have a ground wire on it. If it had, would the damage still have occurred?

"I was fortunate in that the damage was minimal."

Phehw! (sweeping hand across forehead) I guess you were.

"would the damage still have occurred?"……> right back to your first sentence

jimmyb

Would the damage still have occurred?

Maybe. Maybe not.

There are not a lot of absolute laws when it comes to lightning.

Sometimes the lightning strike hits a ground wire that is above the "phase" wires on the utility pole. When that happens, the power of the strike is conducted to something that is attached to ground. However, during that fraction of a second, it can raise the voltage on the ground wire to go from Zero to a Zillion, and then drop back to Zero.

Sometimes the lightning protection in your home electrical system will protect you partly from voltages from phase to ground or from phase to phase. But when the ground itself gets raised up to 3000 volts or something, the protection can't handle it, so your fragile electrical stuff gets zapped. Sorry.

There are better lightning protectors available.

–B.G.–