Re: Wendover Coil Vs USAF lightning TesT?

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

"Original poster: Ben McMillen <spoonman534@xxxxxxxxx>

Hi all,
    Along the lines of lightning tests..

Has anyone here in the US that's an IEEE member read the
article in this month's issue titled "Stealing Celestial
Fire" ? It looks to be along the lines of the 'N2 laser
triggered spark gap' thread we had awhile back..

For those of you who haven't read it..

They're using a Teramobile (titanium sapphire) laser to
create a plasma channel between a charged electrode and a
grond point. The laser is capable of 100 fempto-second
pulses with a max power of 5 terawatts. Rips the electrons
right form the air, creating what they're calling a
'filament'. From the pictures it looks like one heck of a
triggered gap. The idea is to scale it up a bit to reduce
lightning strikes at airports.

Someday I'll have a job like this.. ;)

Coiling In Pittsburgh
Ben McMillen"

	What IEEE journal are you referring to?  The IEEE comic book
(Spectrum)?  I seldom bother to read it but think my wife hasn't thrown
away the latest issue so I'll look for this article; sounds vaguely
familiar.  The analogy to a triggered gap sounds like a prety good one,
although I doubt anyone who had such a monster system being interested
in the tiny little 30 kVA TC's guys on this list build!

Ed