Hello,

Here is the Lancair Legacy Canopy Safety Issue Paper for release.  Please forward it to every Legacy pilot and builder you know.

This paper was written to help improve the level of safety and reduce risks for pilots flying the Lancair Legacy airplane.  Over the Legacy’s almost 15 year operational history, there have been periodic accidents resulting from flight with the canopy unlatched/open.  As those have occurred, the community debates the causes and preventative measures.  The forum where the community comes together for these debates is the Lancair Mail List (LML).  The lively debate is wide ranging with many viewpoints represented and always very helpful discussions.  After these discussions, it can seem that everyone understands the effective measures for dealing with the issues.  Yet, accidents related to flight without the canopy latched continue.

Why is this?  Many Legacy pilots do not participate in the LML, might not even know of its existence, and do not have the benefit of the periodic LML debates on this issue.  And, even for those on the LML, with all the various views and weeks over which the discussions occur, it can sometimes be difficult to see a focused path forward.  The Lancair Company has also not taken an active role in addressing this issue. 

So, this “paper” was created, to be placed in the public domain, to provide another communication vehicle to the broader Lancair Legacy community where information on this issue is consolidated for easy discovery and specific recommendations are presented.  The plan is for this Legacy Canopy Safety Issue Paper to be posted on several websites, where in time it will come up on website search engines, and will be sent to the email addresses of every Legacy pilot that can be found. 

The following fine people have made important contributions to this paper and have my deepest gratitude.

Scott Alair

David Williams

Bill Bradburry

Fred Moreno

Doug Brunner

Art Jensen

Paul Miller

Jim Thomas

John Smith

Jon “Jack” Addison

Dennis Johnson

Allyson Thorn

I believe I speak for us all in saying that it is the hope for other pilots and ourselves that we all enjoy a long life flying the amazing Lancair Legacy airplane and that there be no further losses to our pilot family or damaged airplanes from this open canopy flight hazard.

Valin Thorn

Boulder, Colorado USA
March 21, 2014