Hi Frank,
Interesting fable over here regarding early times Ben Franklin's classic
kite on the string during a thunderstorm experiment. Supposedly , he was
able to discover electricity.
For sure anyone attempting this trick can be in for a jolt of reality.
Evidently, something happened to Ole Ben cause he went off to Europe to
chase women as the US Ambassador....errr.. Oh well !! who knows ? perhaps
thats what is happening in Washington, everyone has their kite hanging out
the window ?
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: "Grimer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 10:10 PM
Subject: Re: Air Rotors to Ship this Fall
At 01:40 pm 06/01/2006 +1100, you wrote:
In reply to Grimer's message of Wed, 04 Jan 2006 04:06:22 +0000:
Hi,
[snip]
At 09:58 pm 03/01/2006 -0500, hohlraum wrote:
Did any ever get struck by Thor?
I never heard of a case.
Lighting doesn't bring down aeroplanes very often.
Why should it bring down balloons?
Frank
It may not bring the balloon down, but of necessity, the cable
must be conducting. Therefore lightning strikes are going to fry
the power connections on the ground.
Regards,
Robin van Spaandonk
Be an extra source of power then, wont it. 8-)
Joking apart. I'm sure the developers
are not complete idiots and have thought
of that one.
Doubtless you could think of many ways of
combating the problem yourself. Presumably
if one was measuring the potential between
the balloon and the ground one would get
an early warning and could react in some
way or other.
At the very least you could isolate the
ground apparatus from the balloon till the
danger was over.
During the war barrage balloons were tethered
by steel cables. Steel is a good conductor
yet I never heard of a balloon being brought
down by lightning and I never noticed the
aroma of frying ground-crew. ;-)
Frank
