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Two different high-current pulses were recorded in an experiment to analyze the dynamics behind high-current pulses in the initial or stepped leader phase of lightning and long laboratory sparks at negative polarity. A qualitative model of existing information was quantitatively correlated through computer simulation and used to analyze a lightning strike on an aircraft. Two separate high-current pulses were observed, to obtain a theoretical model that concurred with an electromagnetic equation.

Part II. Presents a study which examined the relevance of crude models based on elementary plasma physics. Stages that comprise the advancing head of a surface spark; Plasma evolution from the advancing boundary between the discharge and the virgin air up to the maximum of the gas temperature; Phenomena that are likely to dominate the glow-to-arc transition for high electronic densities.