1940s car lightning experiment - GIF

[ToolTalkBot]

1940s car lightning experiment.




Previously:

Ground to cloud lightning - GIF
Lightning destroys tree - GIF
Lightning hits firework - GIF
Lightning hits sailboat - GIF
Lightning lights up truck headlights - GIF
Man struck by lightning - GIF

[neilbourjaily]

That has the appearance of a Tesla Coil. Lots of voltage and little amperage. They're quite cool to see, touchable, and harmless. Tesla used them in lightning experiments.

[PJs]

That has the appearance of a Tesla Coil. Lots of voltage and little amperage. They're quite cool to see, touchable, and harmless. Tesla used them in lightning experiments.

Agreed! Love those old control panels!! A fun yet expensive test, but Problem is lightning strikes can be 10K-30K Amps @ millions of Volts. A real lightning strike on a car may blow a hole in the roof or hood. People have survived such strikes even direct hits which likely has to do with the duration of the strike....keeping in mind Lighting is DC.

Most of the frequencies of big tesla coils are HF between 50KHz to 1MHz and they would tend to travel on skin effect (surface) which is why it completes grounding by traveling most surfaces and ends from the rim to the grounds by arcing.

[Floradawg]

When I was a kid, I was told that the rubber tires protect you somehow. Per that demonstration a lightning bolt will not be put off by a journey of six inches or so. Furthermore, the Faraday cage provided by the car body protects the occupants by directing the energy to ground.

[odd one]

I was riding in a van when I was a kid of about 10 yrs old which got struck by lightning. It hit the antenna and totally destroyed it. Other than that, no other damage that I was told about. We did not even stop, just kept on going and checked it out when we got to where we were going. I do not think that most modern cars would fare as well with all the electronics and such.