Recent data from the airlines lightning strike reporting project

In 1971, General Electric Company and five United States commercial airlines initiated a project to obtain data on lightning strikes to transport-category aircraft. The purpose of the project was to obtain information on the conditions under which aircraft are most likely to receive lightning strikes in flight, and document the effects of these strikes on the aircraft. By early 1984, nearly 800 lightning strike reports had been accumulated and Lightning Technologies Inc. invited the Federal Aviation Administration Technical Center to participate in the project by computerizing each of the strike reports and processing the data. With the data in computer memory, it would be possible to provide correlation among various reported conditions and effects. This paper presents a summary of the strike data obtained through January 1984.