aircraft static wicks

Aircraft Static Wicks - Static discharge wicks on an aircraft's wing provide a path for electrical charge to leak back into the atmosphere. Photo: aviation-images.com/UIG via Getty Images

If you travel by plane this summer, you may notice a series of metal teeth protruding from the trailing edge of the wings. These are often misidentified as lightning arresters. In fact, they provide protection against static electricity.

Aircraft Static Wicks

Anyone who regularly walks on a nylon rug knows that you can pick up static with a friction charging process. This can give you an unpleasant electric shock when you touch a metal door handle. Something similar happens to an airplane flying through rain or dust particles, as it picks up a small amount of charge from contact with each.

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This effect is known as static precipitation. Because the plane is not grounded, the charge has nowhere to go, so it continues to build up. When the charge becomes strong enough, it will spontaneously discharge through antennae and other ends in a series of giant sparks – technically known as a 'corona discharge'. The sparks cause radio interference, which can affect the aircraft's navigation and communication equipment.

Hence the metal protrusions on the wings. Known as static discharge wicks, they provide a path for electrical charge to gradually leak back into the atmosphere, without sparks or radio interference. This image of what appears to be a "nozzle" is currently being shared on social media as alleged evidence of a secret commercial jet spraying program (also known as the "chemtrail" theory).

However, these are simply static discharge wicks, small pieces of wire bolted to the wing that discharge static build-up. Without these fuses, static electricity can build up on the wing and uncontrolled sparks can affect communication and navigation equipment.

The circulating image has a very forced perspective. It looks like the wicks run along the entire length of the wing, but they are actually only a few meters towards the tip of the wing. The wicks are barely visible in most photos of a 747-8F because the plane is so large and the wicks are small.

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Here is a patent for a static discharge fuse. It's basically a piece of plastic-covered multi-strand steel cable that's less than half an inch thick.

But there is actually an "injector" in the picture, the fuel dump. Because of the power perspective, it looks like it's in the middle of the wing, but it's actually near the end (with the wicks)

Here is the valve in action. Jets sometimes need to refuel when they have to turn around after takeoff (or land halfway to their destination) due to an emergency.

And here's a photo of a fuel dump with the static wicks visible, giving a good sense of scale. This is on a 777.

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I found these small tube like objects discussed on a forum in 2009, this picture is what was discussed.

Prodiax: These static wicks had also created a controversy. A man had spied a plane undergoing maintenance and claimed that this system was actually being used to release a product. Content from an external source I searched for static fuses and was taken to a web of Boeing PDFs to find the supplier of the items in question, HR Smith (Technical Developments) Ltd., and a link to the product page.

Thanks to @Fin for the original questions. I override the OP for a more detailed and helpful explanation/removal

From the Airbus manuals. This shows where they are and how many can be missing or repaired. Airbus calls them "Static Dischargers".

Static Wick Doing Its Job

Gridlock said: There aren't many things on a plane that you're allowed to lose 1/5 of... Interesting, thanks. Click to expand...

It depends on the plane. Somewhere I have a diagram of what the A-10 was designed to fly without. That's... Enlightening.

The aircraft is designed to fly with one engine, tail, elevator and half of a wing missing.[51] Content from external source https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II

Mick West said: And here's a picture of a fuel dump with the static wicks visible, giving a good sense of scale. This is on a 777. Click to expand... I found a close up of these in my iPhoto library. Retrieved December 6, 2011, from United Airlines Flight 935: This article needs additional references for verification. Help improve this article by adding references to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Static discharger" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2009 ) (Find out how and how to remove this template message)

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Static dischargers, also called static wicks or static discharge wicks, are devices used to remove static electricity from aircraft during flight. They take the form of small sticks that point aft of the wings and are fitted to almost all civilian aircraft.

Static precipitation is an electrical charge on an aircraft caused by flying through rain, snow, ice or dust particles. Load is also built up through friction between the airframe and the air. When the flight charge is high, it is released into the surrounding air. Without static dischargers, the charge is released in large batches through pointed flight edges such as spars, wingtips, vertical and horizontal stabilizers and other protrusions. The discharge generates a broadband RF noise from DC to 1000 MHz, which can interfere with aircraft communications.

To control this discharge, to allow continuous operation of navigation and radio communication systems, static dischargers are installed in the rear end of aircraft. These include (electrically grounded) ailerons, elevators, rudders, ailerons, horizontal and vertical stabilizer edges. Static dischargers are high electrical resistance devices (6-200 megohms) with lower corona voltage and sharper points than the surrounding aircraft structure.

Static dischargers are not lightning arresters and do not affect the probability of an aircraft being struck by lightning. They will not work if they are not properly attached to the aircraft. There must be a conductive path from all parts of the aircraft to the dischargers or they will be useless. Access panels, doors, covers, navigation lights, antenna mounting equipment, control surfaces, etc. can generate static noise if they cannot be discharged through the static fuse.

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Part of a static discharge in an aircraft. Note the two sharp metal micropoints and the protective yellow plastic.

The first static launchers were developed by a joint Army-Navy team led by Dr. Ross Gunn of the Naval Research Laboratory and were placed on military aircraft during World War II. They were shown to be effective in extreme weather conditions in 1946 by a United States Army Air Corps team led by Captain Ernest Lynn Cleveland.

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