Most people have a crazy fear of lighting, which is fair but wouldn’t it be fascinating to watch millions of volts of lightning burn something down to ashes? If it does interest you, you don’t have to see a natural flash do it because a YouTube filmmaker Tom Scott just traveled to the University of Manchester’s High Voltage Lab and filmed a drone getting struck by lightning.
The High Voltage Lab holds the largest impulse generator of the entire UK that can generate a lightning strike of 2 million volts. Tom Scott took a couple of DJI Phantom 3 drones, not with a purpose to burn them down, but to explore what would happen a drone were to fly through a storm.
Watch the exciting video of the lightning event below:
The results bring one lesson, do not fly your drone in a storm unless you want ashes out of a $1,500 drone.
The lightning strike is even more fascinating in slow motion:
Video: Tom Scott
Images: The University of Manchester