The Role of Low Temperature Plasma Research in Designing the Lightning and Precipitation Static Protection of Novel Aircraft

The interaction of lightning and electrostatic discharge with aircraft has been investigated for almost a century, and even though associated risks are not a concern in aviation safety, thanks to strict guidelines and measures, protection and mitigation are as much a science as an art. The state of the practice heavily relies on historical information, experience, and testing: an approach that has worked extremely well while aircraft variations have been incremental. These methods are becoming questionable when looking at the landscape of novel vehicles designed to achieve net zero carbon emissions, and for urban transport conquering the sky. In this article, it is argued that addressing the needs of these vehicles will require revisiting some of the fundamentals for leader inception, arc reattachment, and electrostatic discharge, and that an approach informed by physics can lead to models for design, as well as new solutions for protection and risk reduction. The article starts with an introduction to the field of lightning protection of aircraft, followed by an overview of the work performed by the author and collaborators. The emphasis is placed on building bridges between the practical application, at the global aircraft scale, and the fundamental physics of electrical breakdown, at the local discharge-point scale.