This is just my guess.Google doesn't seem to know the answer, planes in flight are not grounded and presumably at the same potential as the air around them, or perhaps a little different but why does lightening strike them?
I think the charge of the aircraft is too small to have any effect on a lightning strike.Airplanes are almost always charged for the same reason that you become charged when you scuff your feet across the carpet -- the airplane is 'scuffing' the air continuously and can build up a significant charge (particularly if static wicks aren't installed to concentrate the electric field so that it discharges back into the air). So when you have a cloud that is charged one way and an airplane that is charged the other, there is the potential for a static discharge between them.
I would think that several thousand volts of static charge might just have an effect.I think the charge of the aircraft is too small to have any effect on a lightning strike.
The plane just provides a lower resistance path than the air for the lightning bolt on its way from cloud to ground or cloud to cloud.
Not if the plane is not near the lightning leader path that's forming.I would think that several thousand volts of static charge might just have an effect.
Let's consider the "low resistant path" hypothesis -- the lightning strike is normally going to be traversing many miles of very turbulent and heterogeneous air, typically with lots of precipitation all over the place. Does it really make sense that lowering the resistance of ten meters (small aircraft) or sixty meters (airliner) of that path is going to dictate where the entire channel is going to form?