Lscf makes zero sense to me, carbon fiber is extremely conductive on its own. Unless the metal wire is embedded on top of the resin (which I don't believe I've ever seen) its literally adding nothing (i.e. not lowering the resistance any).
Beautiful; yes. Necessary (even in the aerospace industry); it is not.
Note they also make "lightning strike Kevlar*" micarta too which is just as pretty and not black (I'm not yet sick of black knives but do enjoy handle color options)
*note lightning strike Kevlar actually would serve a purpose since Kevlar fibers don't conduct however even regular (non metal embedded) carbon fiber conducts better than Cu embedded Kevlar so that material really is just for beauty.
Carbon is conductive, true. But it's not very efficient at it. It dissipates the electrical energy as heat (heat = watts, in electrical terms), which is what eventually destroys it. In electrical applications, carbon is used to make some types of resistors, which, as implied in the name, are made to
resist the flow of electrical current, thereby limiting current in a measured and by-design manner. In doing so, they heat up. How much heat it can handle is determined by the resistor's rated wattage. So long as the electrical circuit is operating within it's normal limits of voltage and current (watts = volts X amps), the dissipated heat is harmless to the resistor. But, if the resistors take more current than they're designed to safely handle (such as that from a lightning strike or other power surge), the excess dissipated heat will destroy them.
Metal is a better (more efficient) conductor of electricity than is carbon, meaning there's very little resistance to current flow, in a metal conductor. That means it can handle more current while generating less dissipated heat. A metal filament running through carbon (fiber) material is there to bypass that resistance of the carbon material, which at least reduces the likelihood of it burning up, as electricity always will take the path of (literally) the least resistance.
Edited to add:
It'll also help divert current flow away from the other critical metal parts of an aircraft, which might be damaged/melted/welded by a lightning strike, if they were otherwise the least-resistive path to take.
David
