but I’ll bet you soiled your underwear quicker than I did - when that door came off {:>).

That’s not a figure of speech I generally use; but the ‘startle factor” was way up there for just a moment.  Obviously there was no question what had happened; but there was a question of whether the door had departed the aircraft.  Immediately my mind recalled the story of another Velocity having had the door open on takeoff, and remain attached, and make the plane turn hard to the right. So my immediate response was to put some force on the stick to the left.  I was surprised, and relieved, that the plane responded to the left – so I knew we were still flying. That brought the stress factor down dramatically.

 

I had also immediately pulled back the power when the door came off. So the next thing was to add a bit back to confirm things were smooth – no prop damage.  I don’t recall a major fear factor (maybe my memory is bad) because I didn’t have time to think about bad things happening.  I was very busy for a few moments, and then at least somewhat confident that the outcome was going to be OK.  Very fortunate indeed.  There was potential for much worse.

 

Hope it doesn’t take you long, I know everyone is wondering why the latches failed to hold the door this time when it had before.  I know you are as well.

 

Although I can’t be sure, I have to admit that the most likely cause was that I had not fully latched the door.  If it had not been latched at all, it would have come open on takeoff.  If fully latched, I can’t quite imagine how/why it could come loose.  It had stayed closed for nearly an hour of flight; and then let go.  A bit of a mystery, but as you know, it is usually our own mistakes that bit us.  On the more recent builds it has become more common to have indicator lights that verify full insertion of the latch pins.  There is no question that those will be included in the repair.

 

Al G