RC plane vs. powerline--neat video!

http://www.break.com/index/rcplanecrash.html

Kinda looks like they were TRYING to do something like this, rather than it being an "accident", though.

Any RCers out there who might be able to explain why this thing caused a flashover? All the RC planes I have seen were made of nonconductive stuff like balsa wood, plastic, fiberglass, etc. The small bits of metal in the engine and control linkages wouldn't seem to be enough to do it. maybe a wire stretched between the wingtips for just that reason?

 

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If the RC plane was covered in a metalic Monokote, it may be somewhat conductive. I know some people have reported problems or RC signal loss from the chrome Monokote.

A couple years ago a crow landing on a power line near Los Angeles Internation Airport knocked out the power there.

"Power officials believed that as it was spreading its wings to fly, it touched the power line above it. By connecting the grounded pole with the power line, the bird became a conductor and 34.5 kilovolts of power shot through its body." -LA Observed

 

Haha, just the other day I heard a cracking noise coming from a tree and it was the powerlines getting close to a tree. I hope to god that it causes another blackout sometime...

The one back in 2004 was awesome. I absolutely loved hanging around in the pitch black streets, you couldn't see ANYTHING! Too bad that I didn't smoke weed then though, it would've been pretty fun to hang out whereever you want and not get busted!

 

I didn't even find out about the 2004 blackout until the next day. I was on a backpacking trip, miles from the nearest powerline...

I'm sure that intentionally flying an RC plane into a powerline has to be considered an act of "terrorist sabotage" nowadays. The guys in that video are probably in Gitmo now...

 

There's an old episode of the sitcom Green Acres from the 1960's where they connect a faulty device on their farm to the outlet and it starts sparking. Then an announcer voice comes on saying that this was the cause of the huge blackout in the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada in 1965.

As I've said many times before, yesterday's comedy is today's reality.

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Probably just cause I do electronics/electrical stuff for a living, but that kind of technical illiteracy in the media really starts to bug me after a while.

A kilovolt is a unit of VOLTAGE, not POWER. Power is the product of voltage and current, and would be expressed in watts (or kilowatts), not in kilovolts.

 

a friend of mine owns 1 , didnt see any exposed metal at all, except for the tail nozzles, which are only partialy covered with carbon fibre. if you look at the clip appears to be a sign with "arabic"? writing, an 1 person appears to be wearing clothes of the same region. not that it means anything just an observance.....lol a few years ago i bought 1,lasted about 10 minutes.

 

then you've got KVA Kilo Volt Amps the apparent power of the circuit, like a transformer would be rated in KVA for example.

when inductance -caused by fluoro lights say
or capacitance - caused by distances between live cables
and resistance - caused by electric heaters ( in Ohms)

all get together on an electrical circuit stange things start happening. more current might be drawn but less work is done.
this is why you have apparent power, reactive power and true power
a resistor in a circuit would create an almost purely true power to be measured
whilst a big coil (think a solenoid) would start doing some freaky stuff.
just got back from an exam , my brains fried won't go on
thought it might be interesting.

 

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