On Sat, 5 Dec 1998, Ward Donald Griffiths III wrote:
Yes, throwing sparks does sort of defeat the
purpose. Never saw one
do that, admittedly the only place I ever paid attention was the
flight-line back when I did airplanes for a living.
Not really, since the primary purpose is to drain any static charge prior
to rigging out the tank filler hose and having a spark at the tank filler
pipe.
That's the purpose of the ground reel connected to the tie down/ground point in
the ramp, prior to hooking up the aircraft to the truck. It drains both and puts
them both (truck and plane) on the same potential. When you're talking about JP4
through JP10 fuels then you are talking about a much bigger mess with a spark
than just touching an S100 machine while in the minivan - the ultimate screwup
actually.