How do planes build up large negative electrostatic as they fly through the air? How do these charges form and why do they need to be dissipated before the passengers alight?
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Answer:
Static dischargers, commonly known as static wicks or static discharge wicks, are installed on the trailing edges of aircraft, including (electrically grounded) ailerons, elevators, rudder, wing, horizontal and vertical stabilizer tips. Fitted on almost all civilian aircraft today, they are high electrical resistance (6-200 megaohm) devices with a lower corona voltage than the surrounding aircraft structure. They control the corona discharge into the atmosphere.[1] They are used on aircraft to allow the continuous satisfactory operation of onboard navigation and radio communication systems during precipitation (p-static) conditions. Precipitation static is an electrical charge on an airplane caused by flying through rain, snow, ice, or dust particles. When the aircraft charge is great enough, it discharges into the surrounding air. Without static dischargers, the charge discharges in large batches through pointed aircraft extremities, such as antennas, wing tips, vertical and horizontal stabilizers, and other protrusions. The discharge creates a broad-band radio frequency noise from DC to 1000 MHz, which can affect aircraft communication. Static dischargers contain sharper points than any other part of the aircraft, cause the charge to discharge through them instead, and do so gradually.
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