I left my canopy open one day with my wife in the palne (360) and
took off--realized that the canopy was open--pulled the latch up and
the force of the air pushed the canopy down--I latched the capony and
flew to my destination without incident. I would find it hard to
believe that the canopy not being latched was the problem--more that
likely the accident at Lakland the pilot did not fly the plane.
Paul Hershorin
360 N471LA --- On Fri, 2/6/09, Matt Reeves
<mattreeves@yahoo.com> wrote:
From:
Matt Reeves <mattreeves@yahoo.com> Subject: [LML] Re:
Legacy damaged To: lml@lancaironline.net Date: Friday,
February 6, 2009, 7:35 PM
This is the second incident that I know of with
the Legacy canopy open in flight where the plane was pretty
much uncontrollable in such a condition.
Unfortunately, the one at Sun N Fun did not turn out as good
as this one. Sadly, I saw that plane the day before and
it was a beauty.
Maybe it would be good to invent a
secondary latching system in case of emergency or failure of
the first system, or maybe even one that doesn't latch except
when the first system fails - just some ideas.
Is
anyone aware of similar incidents in the 320/360?
I have the forward hinge canopy with rear locking system but
do still have the manual latches that I am now considering
installing at least on the sides of the canopy towards the
back - or maybe all 4, not sure.
I guess the biggest
concern would be AFTER a crash where you had to get out in a
hurry AND the concern that the canopy would not be able to
open from the outside, unless a firefighter had an
ax.
Congrats on a walking away from this
one!
Matt
--- On Thu, 2/5/09, Bill Hannahan
<wfhannahan@yahoo.com> wrote:
From:
Bill Hannahan <wfhannahan@yahoo.com> Subject: [LML]
Legacy damaged To: lml@lancaironline.net Date:
Thursday, February 5, 2009, 11:43 AM
A
Legacy
(N939CB) was damaged last Friday at
Longmont Co airport, LMO, around 6 PM , almost dark.
The pilot David Williams of Wonderview,
escaped without injury.
http://www.timescall.com/News_Story.asp?ID=14174
Taking off on 29 the canopy opened.
Apparently the plane made a pattern to land on 29. It
hit the top edge of an embankment about 150 yd SE of
the numbers, 29. The impact tore off the gear. It
skimmed across the embankment, through a twisted wire
fence, then dropped about 4 ft onto flat ground and
skidded to a stop about 100 yd from the initial impact
point.
Four metal fence posts cut into the
wing to the spar and it tore 300¢ of wire off the
fence. The ground track was parallel to but about 100
feet south of the runway centerline.
Two feet lower and it would have
been a very sudden stop against the embankment.
Bill Hannahan
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