Tactical Decision-Making Support Information for Aircraft Lightning Avoidance: Feasibility Study in Area of Winter Lightning

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AbstractDid you know that aircraft can cause lightning? Researchers began investigating aircraft-triggered lightning after several cases were observed of aircraft receiving lightning strikes from lightning-inactive clouds. The phenomenon of aircraft-triggered lightning was subsequently confirmed by a UHF radar, and today, it is known that most aircraft lightning strikes are aircraft triggered. However, aviation weather support for aircraft lightning avoidance has not been well developed. This is probably because aircraft lightning strikes have been somewhat avoided by using other information such as thunderstorm nowcasting, and have hardly ever caused serious accidents. In fact, today’s aircraft are designed, manufactured, and certified so as not to be seriously affected by lightning. In actual aircraft operations, however, lightning strikes can still cause minor damage to an aircraft’s body and instruments and result in time and expense being incurred by airlines to check for and repair any damage. Moreover, such checks and repairs can sometimes lead to the delay or cancellation of following services. Aircraft lightning strike is therefore recognized as an important issue in aviation weather. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Tokyo Metropolitan University carried out a feasibility study on providing tactical support information for aircraft lightning avoidance. In this study, weather and flight data were collected from actual cases of aircraft lightning strikes, and their analysis yielded information on trends regarding the relationship between aircraft lightning strikes and weather conditions. A prototype tactical support system was then developed based on the analyzed trends, and its evaluation showed that it could be used to avoid potentially 60%–80% of current aircraft lightning strikes.