Reg, G4FGQ wrote:
"Wasn`t Franklin that lunatic who used to walk around hlying kites in
thunderstorms?"

Story is that Ben Franklin (see $100 bill for portrait) was looking
around his house searching for a metal key to use as an attraction for
lightning. (My neighbor says his kids have lost so many tools that his
back yard is struck repeatedly in thunderstorms.) Ben thought he had
mislaid a new key somewhere. When Ben asked his wife for it she told him
to "go fly a kite". So Franklin showed that charge in a cloud was the
same in nature as chsrge in a jar (an early capacitor).

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI