I thought YOU were the expert. Hmmm...
I guess if there were burn spots, a negative. If parts missing, a positive.
Glad I was able to make you chuckle.
Nah man, your the one with all the awards for your article. I absolutely subscribe to your opinions that I don't know what I'm talking about on this subject. I'm always happy for a chuckle.
Burn spots will occur on either polarity due to coulomb count and "action integral", especially due to this aircraft being a composite. I remember on earlier "discussions" you were referencing your own experience with metal aircraft and that it is possible to tell some differences in damage, though without accurate measuring equipment (not done since the F-106B in the 80's) I'm not willing to accept those sort of conclusions based on my experience in the field. It is common for the exit spot to have larger holes than the entry point. It is common to have *pocking across the entire airframe (up to 100 burns per event in some cases) after the event has concluded. Also, depending on the aircraft's certification,
pieces like winglets (or antenna) which are described as sacrificial,
will exit the aircraft in pieces regardless of polarity if there is enough "action integral" and shockwave. All other structures, meant to stay onboard so to speak, will be certified in either polarity equally so that shouldn't be a telltale sign of anything. If something does fly off, non-sacrificial, then most of us would suspect a design flaw.
The problem, if you'll remember, that we ran into last time, it that from a certification standpoint it is assumed the positive and negative strike will be the same. So what may be a "reveal" for you, in the characteristic of its polarity, is for many of us trivial. Since we can not
prove for certain one is greater than the other, or that one effect is characteristic of a
certain polarity, I wouldn't speculate what damage would indicate either way. You'd need a lifetime, I feel, of research which is not available. Also, since that research didn't pay any of my bills, I didn't get much into it. However, every engineer in this particular field has theories they subscribe to; be it "ball lightning", or the jet's and sprite origin. The simple fact remains so much of this is unknown
Parts missing at this point in the program, (also) may not indicate any sort of polarity since the aircraft is not fully certified. It could be some sort of unanticipated failure.
Another problem, I hate saying it like problem = bad, but from an investigative standpoint a composite aircraft will have clues much different from your metal aircraft. since carbon-reinforced plastics (composites) reduces conductivity previously expected and relied on from traditional aircraft designs, effects of the event are newer to the observer. The composite material acts like a resistor, although lets face it, it IS a flying resistor, and that creates heat. The heat generated will, in some cases, delaminate the composite. Since heat is ambivalent to polarity you may not find the results you are looking for. Also, since no aircraft flying today has any Hall Effect transformers on their bundles measuring polarity, you would not have any real evidence.
The only exception to the above, may be the "superstroke" phenomenon. Fortunately since aircraft lightning strikes are aircraft triggered (and therefore, by its nature, less intense), that "superstroke" is assumed to be tossed in the garbage for certification requirements.
*I call it pocking, a lot of folks call it pitting, I intend to reference the same event calling it a pock mark
I'm writing a damn essay here. I gotta stop. I barely proof read that but I imagine no one is going to read all this so I'm done.
TLDR
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