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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