From: Matt Reeves <mattreeves@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: [LML] Legacy damaged
To: "Lewis III, Charles S." <CSLEWIS@stoel.com>
Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 6:53 PM

Carl, I never said the Legacy was unstable, in fact I said, I was not aware the Legacy was unstable  (and thus needed design changes).    I  suppose it would be similar to the small tail Lancair 320 which the Australian gov't wanted a bigger tail which never meant the original was unstable, it just meant the MKII tail improved stability.  The new Legacy Synergy has some design changes to improve stability as stated in this article: The model licensed to Colombia is a variant of the company's Legacy FG > model. The new aircraft, which exists on paper only, features a wing that's > 15 percent bigger than the Legacy FG wing, leading-edge cuffs and a ventral > fin, all design attributes that provide stability in flight, Ong said. --- On Sat, 2/7/09, Lewis III, Charles S. <CSLEWIS@stoel.com> wrote: From: Lewis III, Charles S. <CSLEWIS@stoel.com> Subject: RE: [LML] Legacy damaged To: "Matt Reeves" <mattreeves@yahoo.com> Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 2:36 PM Matt: Did someone say that the airplane was uncontrollable? I thought we had heard the contrary before from a person or two who had flown a Legacy with the canopy unlatched. Carl Lewis Legacy ________________________________ From: Matt Reeves [mailto:mattreeves@yahoo.com] Sent: Fri 2/6/2009 4:35 PM To: lml@lancaironline.net Subject: Re: [LML] Legacy damaged 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 wfhannahan@yahoo.com