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    We've had this discussion before, but it still eludes me how static
wicks are going to have any beneficial effect on an airplane with a
non-conductive, e-glass skin like the ES.  For a carbon fiber airframe, with
all the pieces electrically bonded together, I can see how wicks on the TE's
could keep static charge density down over large areas, but I can't see how
on the ES they will do anything but dissipate a little charge over a very
confined, local area.  The conductivity and dielectric of an e-glass
composite is probably not very different from air, and as we all know from
shuffling our feet on a carpet in the winter, we need to get very close to
that doorknob, maybe a millimeter or so, before the charge dissipates
(Yikes!).  Am I missing something here, or are the folks buying wicks for
e-glass frames wasting a lot of money?

Jim Cameron, ES builder



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Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.
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