How does aircraft grounding for Pstatic and lightning strike work? Is the charge “bleed” off to the surrounding air?
In: Engineering
Yes.
The charge tends to distribute itself over the outside of the aircraft skin (since electrons repel each other, they want to get as far away from each other as they can, and the outside surface lets them do that). Then it slowly bleeds off into the air starting at pointy bits. To control this discharge (since sparks would generate RF interference with the radios) there are specially designed “pointiest parts” of the plane called [static wicks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_discharger). The electricity slowly dissipates into the air through them.
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