High-voltage static jumping off a kite line

In all my years flying kites, I have only encountered this 3 times. Phillip Chase was sitting on this bench flying a different kite and thought he heard the line singing on this one which was tied off. As he moved closer to check it out, it shocked him. I grabbed my camera to capture this real-life physics experiment. A few factors to note:

The bench was made of a plastic composite material, as was the line and the kite itself. The static would jump into mid air and make the same sound as jumping to our fingers if it was allowed to build up enough. The two other identical kites flying in the same conditions were not doing the same thing. They were flying on different line material, and tied off to different things, a person and a wooden fence. There was visible lightning and electrical activity in a storm that was about 1-3 miles to the West of us.

The other two times I have experienced this were both while riding in my kite buggy, and I started to get a shock through my leg to the metal frame of the buggy.

Listen through headphones or on good speakers for the full effect of this video.

Kites by Jordan Air Kites, Video by Tim Elverston and Phillip Chase. Shot at Anastasia State Park in FL on June 27th 2010 at 4pm.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• electricity
• kites
• sparks
• kite flying
• tim elverston
• jordan air kites
• phillip chase

[Telverston]

@jcwk87 Please at least use google before exposing your ignorance.

[TFiPW]

it's the secret that the power company doesn't want you to know

[josephdupont]

Why not coat the string with some anti static stuff and make an aluminum foil capacitor.

If I had no power lines around, i'd generate power.

some might be from just the wind blowing past the string.

airplanes generate static too.

[DragonFlyback256]

@RukiaAsgard

Corona Discharge.

[DragonFlyback256]

That's a lot of static. Up to a few kilovolts, and it's charging back up quite quickly and constantly. It actually seems having to do something with the storm itself. That's why it's not advised to be out if the storm is relatively far away but you can hear or see its electric activity. Might as well be just the materials you used though.

[DragonFlyback256]

@fondlemehardcore

More precisely, both at once that does the damage.

[BRACK3N]

This is fascinating, Would ruin some IC's, Planes have got potential balancing from one wing to another to stop static build up and arcs.

[RukiaAsgard]

@Telverston OMG finally I found someone with a similar experience. I was just done with kite flying about 7 hrs ago. My situation was a lot more scary. Care to exchange further info on this? I had static charge way higher than you had. Sparks flew from screw on kite reel to my fingers. I couldn't release my kite reel after getting shocked for short couple of secs. And best part there was blue plasma glowing on 2 spots on my kite line. Like WTF..

[blahblahpornful]

omg double rainbow

[AguzSuiCaedere]

Is high-voltage static all the way. So intense :)