In-Service Falcon Lightning Strike Events

This paper focuses on the lightning events encountered by Falcons fleet (F900, F2000 and F7X) during a 10 years period, between the 1st January 2003 and 12th July 2013. During this period, 164 lightning strikes have been collected in a database which provides an interesting feedback. A considerable amount of researches have been accomplished during last decades to highlight the mechanisms whereby aircrafts are struck by lightning. Strike occurrence data, principally for commercial aircrafts, have been collected for many years. However, much less data is available for smaller aircrafts like private jets. Are these statistics gathered consistent with Dassault Aviation in-flight lightning events experience? In a first part, this study will be focused on the analysis of Falcon lightning events as a function of the following parameters: Flight hours and cycles ; Type of Falcon ; Altitude ; Flight path (climbing, cruise or descent) The different factors which may influence the lightning strike rate will be highlighted and compared to data gathered until now. Moreover, dedicated analysis will be performed on the zone 3, where an attachment of the lightning channel is unlikely. In a second part, a lightning attachment points mapping will be established. The aim is to highlight lightning strike areas with higher probability of encountering attachment or sweeping phenomenon and correlate these observations with standard aircrafts zoning and computations performed by ONERA.