LML gang,
Austrian Legacy builder Helmut Burner was able to contact Wolfgang Mascheck in Austria and get him the second draft of the Legacy Canopy Safety paper for review. Here’s Helmut’s German to English translation of Wolfgang’s letter to him regarding his unlatched canopy accident, below. Note that Wolfgang had the first in the series of unlatched canopy accidents.
Valin Thorn
Legacy Project
Boulder, Colorado
Hi Helmut,.
Thank you for the mail!
Something about myself: I am now 62 years old, and had an advertising agency in the Switzerland. I learned to fly at 16 (at that time, gliding),Have a CPLII, no IFR, had owned my own planes already before a Mooney and have approximately 2300 h. flying time.
The Legacy Kit No. 52 I started building it in 2001 at Redmond with Lancair and finished it at the spring of 2003 in Hohenems where I made my first flight. The approval was carried out by the FAA with license plate N345MW. I had at the time two FAA controller from Washington here in Hohenems and had with the Legacy till my emergency landing in the fall of 2005 wonderful flights.
The Legacy is an aircraft with really good handling characteristic. The angle of attack system allowed me even in Hohenems on the short airfield (630m) always good landings.
The accident is very well described in your canopy.safety report
To the background of my accident:
The canopy was always very important for me because I knew of the danger. Also the accident in Lake country got me thinking. I had a built-in warning light and nevertheless I previously briefly made a manual pressure check every time before taking off.
Two years ago I read a US review of two Legacy pilots who dared to open the canopy in the cruise.
They described that at that time they opened the canopy at 220kt it moved upwards about 2 inches so 5 cm. that means, the pressure in the cruise is higher compared to the lift, so that the canopy was not raised more than that . Then they tried to close the canopy but couldn’t do that during flight.
The two pilots on board were able to land without problems because one was holding the canopy at the present position so that it couldn’t move
At my former misfortune flight, the situation was as followed:
I wanted to start this evening at 07:30PM for a short sightseeing flight. The airfield restrictions are that there are only landings till 08:00 PM allowed
I wanted to fly so only 20 min. Still 10 minutes went by until the run up were done and so I got something under time pressure. The canopy was already closed and locked?
At the start, under time pressure, I did not make the manual pressure canopy check this time unfortunately! Shortly before airborne, it popped up, but I had already too much speed to abort the take off. Because of the short runway and knowing after the short paved runway is a small ditch and
on the basis of the above report, I thought it will be not so bad to fly with the canopy open- and flew the airplane
Because I couldn't see forward I had to hold down with one hand the canopy and of course to climb and the upwards lift forces were very high and I had no view and thus no free hand more to move the suspension, throttle or to use prop, flaps, etc.
And in such conditions I thought it is impossible to land: So full throttle out and into the pasture at the end of the runway. While I tried that I stalled the plane and you know the rest of the report.
But now the question: Why wasn’t the canopy locked?
I had an inflatable canopy seal. When I closed the canopy it grazed on this rubber hose something and I had to press it down briefly in order to latch it. If this down pressure was not made the lock could not hook up in the canopy and it then passes below the Canopy latch. Therefore not locked! -because I have not done this short down pressure.
Hey if you should not understand this I will explain it to you at the meeting.
Helmut, I'm looking forward for that meeting" in Hohenems.
Many greetings
Wolfgang