Why are airplanes able to get hit by lighting without it affecting the electronics, passengers, or ability to fly?
In: Physics
Actually airplanes can be, and are affected by lightning strikes. The result is just usually not that bad, but it’s still mandated that post-strike the plane has to be inspected. The plane is not, contrary to what others here are saying, a Faraday cage. The most likely regions to be struck are leading wing tips or the nose, and the most likely place for the current to exit is the tail. The reason that the lightning doesn’t tend to fry the people *inside* the plane has to do with an analogue to the Skin Effect. The current will tend to remain on the surface of a conductor, although this usually only applies to AC, for various non-ELI5 reasons it also applies to a lightning strike.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-when-lightni/
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