From: stellare@NOSPAMPLEASE.erols.com.retro.com   
      
   Henry Spencer wrote:   
      
   > In article ,   
      
   >>How difficult would it be to mount lots of lights inside the wings, and   
   >>paint the inside white, so that any hole in the wing can easily be   
   >>detected from a great distance?   
   >   
   > A lot of work if you want to get them into every nook and cranny, plus the   
   > question of whether structural damage might also happen to cut the wiring.   
      
   Just a nit, but if the wire to a light is cut, that is usually easy to detect.   
   If it results in an open circuit, then the current goes to zero, a detectable   
   fault.  If it results in say a short to ground or the return lead, then the   
   current gets to be very high, also a detectable fault.  If the current is in   
   between for whatever wacky reason, then the differences between the original   
   current and the new current is often detectable.  Of course, if you bring a   
   TDR on-board then you can "see" the length and impedance of the cable.   
      
   > And detection from a great distance requires a lot of light...   
   >   
   > Much better, on the whole, to improve close-up inspection technology by   
   > using things like lidar imaging.   
      
   --   
   rk, Just an OldEngineer   
   "Dealing properly with very rare events is one of the attributes that   
   distinguishes a design that is fit for safety-critical systems from one that   
   is not."  -- John Rushby in "A Comparison of Bus Architectures for Safety-   
   Critical Embedded Systems," March 2003   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)