Aircraft Antenna System Lightning Protection

The recent use of insulated aircraft wing or fin cap sections for radio antennas has required that consideration be given not only to the protection of radio equipment but to the protection of the insulated aircraft sections as well. Failure of simple spark gap protection used in early installations for aircraft radio equipment has been correlated to the occurrence of long duration lightning strokes, which, because of low current rates of rise, do not build up sufficient voltages across lead or tuning inductances to flash simple protective gaps. In order to provide protection against all types of lightning discharges, an aircraft lightning arrester utilizing a combination gap and series capacitor was proposed by LTRI, and has been developed in a number of commercially available types for various type installations discussed in the paper.