LIGHTNING ON FULL COMPOSITE HELICOPTER USING FLY BY WIRES

This paper gives an overview of the methodology that has been used for the establishment and the demonstration of the lightning protection of the NH90 helicopter. As soon as the NH90 definition was mature enough, the methodology used to develop the lightning protection took into account the growing capabilities for computation of lightning effects on helicopters. This paper describes in particular the analysis and tests that have been performed until now. It gives preliminary results, which allow us to already establish that this helicopter will be safe and operational under stormy conditions. To evaluate lightning constraints at equipment level, both computations and measurements have been used. Computations allowed having a better knowledge on lightning indirect effects coupling phenomena. Measurements allowed consolidating the computations and provided an extensive database of coupling results. Some comparisons between tests and computations are discussed.