Re: TC & Lightning 2

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ed Phillips" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net> 

"I have shot Estes stick rockets in the back yard to attract a lightning
strikes.  I have noticed each thunder storm has its own personality.
Some
thunder storms the lightning comes very regular.   You can sometimes
predict the time between lightning strikes and find that lightning
strikes
are comming every 20 seconds or maybe every 15 seconds it just depends
on
the storm.  The window of opportunity is very short maybe 3 to 5
mintues.
Fire the rocket about 3 seconds before the next predicted lightning
strike.
Rocket propellent smoke is full of carbon which is a good conduction for
high voltage.   I can get a lightning strike to my back yard about 1 out
of
3 times in some storms and 1 out of 2 times in other storms.    A good
lightning bolt sounds like a stick of dynamite, "BOOM."    It shakes the
house.    I learned not to do this very close to the house because high
voltage does not always follow the smoke trail all the way to the
ground.
I had a lightning strike hit a tree and the amazing thing was the
electricity came down the tree, then followed the tree roots in the
ground
and about 50 large sparks jumped up out of the ground all around the
tree.
It was probably a 30 ft radius of 3 ft long lightning sparks shooting up
out of the ground.  It split the 50 ft tall tree down the middle.

If I could get the rocket to pull up a wire without breaking it I might
be
able to get more lightning strikes.   I was considering using a fishing
real will copper wire but am not willing to melt down a good fishing
real
for this experement.

Gary Weaver"

	This is sort of relevant to TC's and definitely to high voltage.  One
of my EE profs at Caltech (later head of the EE Department) worked at
Westinghouse in the early 1940's and got into lightning research.  They
tried to send up wires on balloons to "catch" lightning strikes so they
could record their characteristics (current vs time).  Worked a few
times then one of their balloons got loose and drifted around
Pennsylvania, shorting out HV power lines as it went and causing a lot
of trouble.  Fortunately their was no ID on the balloons and the
authorities never figured out who did it.  Later on they used some kind
of rockets to loft the wires and didn't have any further trouble except
on those occasions where the wire got caught and pulled the rocket back
to the ground while it was still burning.

Ed