Simulation of lightning attachment to open ground, tall towers and aircraft

The authors employ a mathematical model of lightning currents to write a software package for simulating all manner of lightning flashes. The capabilities of the package are demonstrated by extracting the behaviour of lightning waveforms following attachment to open ground, tall towers and aircraft. It is shown that the model can be used to determine the behavior of the return stroke along the lightning column for different conditions and to calculate the electric and magnetic fields at various observation points near or far from the flash and at various heights above the ground