IFR RV-10 and Fiberglass

[Avi8tor857]

It's my understanding that for certified aircraft made out of composite you must have a copper mesh integrated into the composite or other form of Faraday Cage surrounding the passengers and electronics for IFR certification. This is why some of the Diamond aircraft are not certified for IFR. I know the 10 is mostly metal and in the Experimental class there is no such requirement but the composite structure around the cockpit has me wondering. How safe is it for true IFR operations where you have to worry about static discharge and also lightning. I know no one should be flying a RV10 in a thunderstorm so I don't want to start that debate, just trying to answer my curiosity.

I'm in the research phase while I am debating building one, and I can't find an answer for this question.

 

[Mike S]

Welcome to VAF!

Joseph, welcome to the good ship VAF.

There are a lot of RV 10s out there flying IFR, and to the best of my knowledge, none are utilizing a Faraday cage setup.

Probably a lot of Glassair, and Lancairs too------------but then many Lancairs are made with carbon fiber.

I would suggest you talk to Stein at Steinair------------he is our resident guru in this kind of thing.

 

[SteinAir]

Consider it this way. There is indeed various methods of lightning protection, static protection, electrical grounds, hard points, etc.. embedded into various composite systems (E-Glass, mesh, etc..) for various reasons - but rarely is IFR "certification" necessarily the primary or absolute cause/effect of that.

In the end there does not exist any "IFR Certification" for an experimental, and those flying their ships IFR (with appropriate equipment) have not found any issues that I'm aware of relating to the composite cabin top. The RV-10 would not be considered a composite airframe, it would be considered metal.

Just my 2 cents as usual.

Cheers,
Stein

 

[Avi8tor857]

Thanks for the response.

The thought had occurred to me that with the fiberglass top from an EMF/electrical point of view its an open cockpit. Though, I guess even all metal airplanes have windows large enough to remove the Faraday cage protection.