“Scientists are still puzzled as to what triggers a spark during a thunderstorm. The latest attempt to answer the question only adds to the intrigue.
It seems hard to believe that we still don’t understand what causes lightning during thunderstorms – but that’s a fact.

Famously, Benjamin Franklin was one of the first people to investigate how lightning is triggered. He was correct to conclude that lightning is a natural electrical discharge – those were the early days of harnessing electricity – but it’s not clear that his celebrated kite-and-key experiment in 1752 ever went beyond a mere idea, not least because the kite was depicted, in Franklin’s account, as being flown – impossibly – out of a window.”

Why can’t you fly a kite out of a window?

Peak Warming Man said:

“Scientists are still puzzled as to what triggers a spark during a thunderstorm. The latest attempt to answer the question only adds to the intrigue.
It seems hard to believe that we still don’t understand what causes lightning during thunderstorms – but that’s a fact.

Famously, Benjamin Franklin was one of the first people to investigate how lightning is triggered. He was correct to conclude that lightning is a natural electrical discharge – those were the early days of harnessing electricity – but it’s not clear that his celebrated kite-and-key experiment in 1752 ever went beyond a mere idea, not least because the kite was depicted, in Franklin’s account, as being flown – impossibly – out of a window.”

Why can’t you fly a kite out of a window?

The only problem I can see is launching it.

Once it was airborne in a breeze you could fly it from an open window.

Launching a kite from a window is difficult, but with the kite some way down wind it should be quite possible to get it airborne from inside a building.

From here.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120926-what-causes-lightening

I was half way through writing the thread title and pressed a wrong qwerty key and away it went all the way to here, unauthorised.

It’s ok Pete, the thread title was intriguing enough for me to have a look :-)

I reckon you can, and in a storm all you need to do is send out your man servant to lift it into the wind and it will be away. No running backwards required. Modern kites you dont need to do the running backwards thing but I am making allowances for an old heavy design.

Geoff D said:

Launching a kite from a window is difficult, but with the kite some way down wind it should be quite possible to get it airborne from inside a building.

Launch the kite in the usual way ie out side, once the kite is at the desired height, pass the string through the window from outside?

Maybe he got someone to launch the kite outside, and then pass the handle to him in the window once it was up.

bob(from black rock) said:

Geoff D said:

Launching a kite from a window is difficult, but with the kite some way down wind it should be quite possible to get it airborne from inside a building.

Launch the kite in the usual way ie out side, once the kite is at the desired height, pass the string through the window from outside?

Yeah, maybe. If it was a box kite, which is what I’d use for this sort of thing, all you need to do is stand it on end some distance downwind and flick it into the air. (I astounded the locals in Lombok with my 1.2m long box kite with aluminium tubing frame.)

Is there an echo in here?

echo, in here?

Geoff D said:

bob(from black rock) said:

Geoff D said:

Launching a kite from a window is difficult, but with the kite some way down wind it should be quite possible to get it airborne from inside a building.

Launch the kite in the usual way ie out side, once the kite is at the desired height, pass the string through the window from outside?

Yeah, maybe. If it was a box kite, which is what I’d use for this sort of thing, all you need to do is stand it on end some distance downwind and flick it into the air. (I astounded the locals in Lombok with my 1.2m long box kite with aluminium tubing frame.)

I had one of these which were launchable from a rubber dingy to put up a radio antenna for aircrew shot down over open ocean during WW II

Anyway I’m surprised that we don’t know how lightning works or more speciffically what triggers it.
I wonder if it has something to do with those ‘sprites’ that you can see from space over a storm cell?

easier to just launch a small rocket trailing a wire to conduct down to the ground – its safer

i’ve often thought of launching in a storm and having the launch pad on a small box filled with petrol fumes

as the lighning strikes it travels down the wire and sets off the petrol

if anyone complains you can tell them it was an act of god

wookiemeister said:

easier to just launch a small rocket trailing a wire to conduct down to the ground – its safer

i’ve often thought of launching in a storm and having the launch pad on a small box filled with petrol fumes

as the lighning strikes it travels down the wire and sets off the petrol

if anyone complains you can tell them it was an act of god

This is standard procedure for lightning researchers, apart from the box of petrol fumes. I remember watching shows like Towards 2000 as a kid when this was considered cutting edge stuff.

party_pants said:

wookiemeister said:

easier to just launch a small rocket trailing a wire to conduct down to the ground – its safer

i’ve often thought of launching in a storm and having the launch pad on a small box filled with petrol fumes

as the lighning strikes it travels down the wire and sets off the petrol

if anyone complains you can tell them it was an act of god

This is standard procedure for lightning researchers, apart from the box of petrol fumes. I remember watching shows like Towards 2000 as a kid when this was considered cutting edge stuff.

the petrol fumes would be an awesome sight

wookiemeister said:

the petrol fumes would be an awesome sight

The Army has a water heater called a choofet. It is basically a big bin with a donut shaped chimney and a petrol tank. The petrol drips down onto a vapourisation plate and burns around the donut which is submerged and then up out of the chimney. If they go out you have petrol dripping onto a plate and vaporising and staying vapourised with the heat of the water. It was always good fun to see how much of a bang and how many chimney sections would lift off on relighting. Makes a hell of a bang with a good one. If too much petrol drips down it is more of a whoof and a flame like you get on an oil rig. But just right it is a proper little explosion.

Bad wording, not a donut shaped chimney, a donut that sits at the bottom of the water and the burning petrol and smoke travels through that and up a straight chimney.

Peak Warming Man said:

Anyway I’m surprised that we don’t know how lightning works or more speciffically what triggers it.
I wonder if it has something to do with those ‘sprites’ that you can see from space over a storm cell?

Look without a sci-degree.. my advice is worth nothing but I’d suggest that anything we can see with our eyes, is well after ignition.

>The Army has a water heater called a choofet.

Ahh, good times :)

what you could have is a wooden frame with stretched plastic sheet over it.

theres msds on what constitutes a dangerous level of petrol to air

you could bang down earth stakes into the ground and the plastic box could rest on them

the earth stakes would actually penetrate the box the rocket would take off and the wire would led to the top of the box to a thin metal plate, hopefully the ground around the box would be wet too

hopefully the lightning strike would travel to the box and then discharge across to the earth stakes triggering the perfect mixture of petrol to fuel

if it doesn’t you need a trigger of your own

I was under the impression that a leader went up from the earth to the cloud, then the main discharge from the cloud followed this path back to the earth.