Static dissipators

[JackinMichigan]

In an effort to get my high performance rating I've been taking the club's Cessna 182T up with instructor, and during the preflight I noticed a dozen or so of these small, antenna like devices protruding from the trailing edges. My instructor told me they were 'static dissipators', which are necessary in high performance aircraft. Apparently when flying fast static electricity can build up on the airplane's skin rendering the radios inoperable, and my instructor said that my RV-10 should also be equipped with these. It's not, and looking at pictures of other RV-10s I'm not seeing them there either. Are these really necessary, and if not then why not?

 

[JackinMichigan]

I just noticed someone else asked this exact question two days ago, and I believe I have my answer. Please feel free to weigh in anyway.

 

[Bevan]

Is your RV10 flying yet? Do you fly in the flight levels or where the air is very dry? If so, do you have radio trouble when you do? My guess is you won't have any trouble and that's why you see few if any RV's with the wicks.

There's likely more to dissipating the static than just adding some wicks anyway. For example, aircraft with wicks also have electrical "bonding" between hinged parts such as ailerons and elevators. This all adds weight and maintenance. Perhaps it's more for lightning protection. Do you plan on flying near lightning storms?

My opinions only and worth less than you've paid for them..

Bevan

 

[RV6_flyer]

Static dissipators are a thing of the past back when LORAN was popular. Not necessary on RVs with modern equipment.

 

[rdamazio]

Whether they're useful or not should go into the "neverending debates" section

They're also called static wicks - as physics teaches us, when you have an electric charge on a conductive material, it'll have the highest potential towards fine tips. If you look closely at the aft end of those, you'll see they're actually comprised of very fine wires bundled together - those help the static electricity discharge to the atmosphere.

Now my two cents on whether they're useful: while it's true that LORAN was the most sensitive to this, there's one important type of device that also can't take a very large amount of static buildup - LCD screens. With the static buildup, the elements that make the pixels show up in different colors eventually gets saturated, and just let light through - meaning your screens turn white and you can no longer get anything useful out of them. If you're in IMC, this can be a problem, and I've seen a couple cases of people having to resort to backup instruments after prolonged flight in IMC because of this (but then others will tell you they've been flying IMC without them for 20 years without issue ). I added them to my 10, it was easy enough - take a look at Mouser's blog for some details on how to provide the attachment points.

 

[rocketman1988]

There's more...

There is quite a bit more to the story than just sticking some wicks on your airframe. Are they necessary? Depends on who you ask. Will it hurt to add them? Probably not, however, there is science behind where you put them and how many you need, and as previously posted, the flight control surfaces will need to be bonded. As another data point, I will not be adding them to my -10...