shocking experience

[bennyh]

This happened to me last year.

Riding on a humid overcast day but with no sign of thunder or storm clouds.

Every jump there was a crack before landing and a strange sensation like touching an electric fence.

Obviously I got out to drop the kite and whilst being gently lifted off the beach in gusts I was getting shocks through my heels. I could even see the sparks coming off my buddy.

There was no storm or lightning all day. Could it be static build up on the canopy like a balloon rubbed on a jumper????

Anyone else had this happen?

[RickI]

I think it is like having a generator or dynamo setup over a large area. You have a charge differential between the sky and the ground, you have moist air and a moving conductor, your lines with an outer coating of moisture and perhaps salt. Guys have been treated to continuos and intermittant shocks when the atmospherics are right in the absence of storm clouds.

I remember reading about some guys that had this while snowkiting last year. As a kid I remember hearing stories about guys on rooftops working on long wire short wave antennas. When the atmospherics and wind were right the antennas could toss out a very nasty shock, potentially knocking the guy off of the roof. If there are storm clouds in the area, I normally drop my kite to the water pronto and get in when the shocks start to avoid the lightening that often seems to shortly follow.

Rick Iossi

[Mr Jo Macdonald]

Hi Benny,
I've heard of people using kevlar lines getting shocks when kiting after storms because an induced charge builds up in the lines.
Same thing happens if you leave a coil of wire near a transformer or anything else producing a strong magnetic field, the length of condutor gets charged by the field and then will discharge to earth as soon as it can.
You can even get whopping big shocks like this even if the wire isn't connected to anywhere live.
Jo

[Kitedude]

I was out the other day teaching, a friend of mine to fly a foil. She was wearing a 3/4 length synethic wooly type cardigan with her hood up. It got a bit gusty and the clouds got a bit dark. i went to take the kite from on and got zapped by electricty. Other people saw this and went to help take the kite of her, but they too were getting zapped/shocked. she ended up hvaing to ditch the kite hard onto the ground. I would have loved to have had a video camera with me cause it was the funniest kite related thing i have seen yet

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kitedude on 2002-10-24 20:26 ]</font>