AV News: Lightning Strikes Drone

What happens when a drone gets struck by lightning? The School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering found out.

It’s here where you'll find the UK’s largest High Voltage Laboratory. The lab's giant Tesla coil can create an electric charge- just like a lightning bolt. They work with several industries - aerospace and wind turbine builders, for instance- to see how their products hold up to a lightning strike. The idea was hatched with the help of YouTuber Tom Scott, who has almost 800 thousand subscribers – and dozens of interesting videos!
While it took a bit of time to set up the experiment, it was over in nearly an instant... Far too fast for our eye to even see what happened Their solution - a slo-mo camera, that records at more than seven thousand frames per second- 200 times faster than your average video camera. For the two tries, the camera was fast enough to capture the lightning entering- and leaving- the drone. In one test, you can see in the video how the props actually flew off! In another test, the drone's battery actually survived. Researchers think that's due to it being inside a metal case.

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