It would be a bit more serious than a loss of communication. The electronics in the plane would be completely melted. Including the ones responsible for controlling the plane.
Airplanes are designed to withstand the current, voltage, and EMP effects of lightning strikes, whose local fields are several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything the sun has ever thrown at the earth.
Any solar-originated pulse strong enough to “completely melt” any electronics in the plane will kill everyone and everything on the daylight-side of the planet, and probably strip the entire atmosphere.
Why and how would the electronics in an airplane be melted? Airplanes are naturally a Faraday cage, and all the components are going to be EMF shielded anyways.
The only thing an airplane would need to worry about with a solar storm is the increase in radiation exposure, and even then it’s only relevant for the Flight crew who have limits on how much radiation they can be exposed to per OSHA.
That’s not how earlths magnetic field induced current works…
The conductors on a plane are short, the induced current is tiny. Significant currents are produced in long conductors (transmission wires). Severely damaging the infrastructure they connect to, and potentially themselves.
It would be a bit more serious than a loss of communication. The electronics in the plane would be completely melted. Including the ones responsible for controlling the plane.
Airplanes are designed to withstand the current, voltage, and EMP effects of lightning strikes, whose local fields are several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything the sun has ever thrown at the earth.
Any solar-originated pulse strong enough to “completely melt” any electronics in the plane will kill everyone and everything on the daylight-side of the planet, and probably strip the entire atmosphere.
Why and how would the electronics in an airplane be melted? Airplanes are naturally a Faraday cage, and all the components are going to be EMF shielded anyways.
The only thing an airplane would need to worry about with a solar storm is the increase in radiation exposure, and even then it’s only relevant for the Flight crew who have limits on how much radiation they can be exposed to per OSHA.
That’s not how earlths magnetic field induced current works…
The conductors on a plane are short, the induced current is tiny. Significant currents are produced in long conductors (transmission wires). Severely damaging the infrastructure they connect to, and potentially themselves.