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Has anyone had the canopy of 601 XL open during the flight ??
My canopy opened in flight at 1500' at 100 kts early this month (May 2013). The aircraft dived towards the land and was hard to control. The canopy stayed up in the air and I could not pull it down. I slowed down to 60 kts and droped down to 500' just in case I had to land on the beach. All the items got sucked out from the back including my head phones. I turned back to the airport, about 2 miles. I could not communicate with any one so I had to be carefull of other trafic in the circuit. It was hard to see forward due to high wind. I managed to land the aircraft safely.
Since this episode, I have install a safety belt so the canopy can not open if the latches are opened or fail.
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OK. That's good. Anton Myer is another source for some 601 parts from Europe. He has sourced some parts for me on a share freight basis in the past. I purchased his spare canopy and composite U/C leg.
Not yet Ian. I am organising one via Australia to cut the cost of freight. The canopy is around $600 USD and freight is more than canopy unless the Ausies can help me to bring one in their container. The duck-tape is holding the canopy together and I am still flying. Cheers.
Hi Shafid.
Did you get your canopy replaced OK?
Thank goodness you are OK and had the wits about you to land safely. Phill I like your design so much, im going to copy it and use it in my 650, got the parts on order.
I have designed and installed a 601XLB canopy securing device. I believe that most canopy open in flight occurrences are caused by:
1. failure to secure the canopy before flight
2. inadvertently knocking the handle during turbulence in flight
3. incorrect rigging of the latch mechanism.
Therefore I have come up with a canopy handle locking guard that physically holds the handle in the latched position. One significant advantage of this design is that this handle guard can be opened from inside the cockpit OR from outside the aircraft.
Glad to hear you landed safely.
@ Phil,
I like that your design will afford some protection against damaged canopy assembly while parked and opening your canopy with a strong tailwind. I always open mine with extreme caution on the ground paying attention to the windsock. I'd suggest making sure that your rope length be a few inches short of your max opening so you don't ever allow stress on the plunger mechanism. Two things happen when you open the canopy with a tailwind:
1) It can get away from you quickly and if it does it'd be pretty easy to damage the hinges and hydraulic plunger.
2) You now have a very nice spinaker sail on your Zodiac, and your Zodie will very gladly roll into anything in it's path if you haven't set a parking brake. With my luck it would find the nearest Cirrus :)
Nice job on staying focused on the primary job -- fly the airplane!
A secondary latch of some type is certainly a good idea, especially if you have the original 601XL latching system. I plan to fit the 650 latch system to my XL when I build that part of the plane, several people have done this already. I ALSO plan to have a secondary latch, just to be sure.
Try to design and install a secondary system that is easy and fast to unlatch. You do not want a cumbersome, slow process in case you need to exit the aircraft rapidly. I sometimes fly a friend's 601XL and his secondary latches (one on each side, adapted from window latch hardware) works very nicely but it takes two hands, some practice and some patience to unfasten it. Speed sometimes matters. My tentative design involves a single rope or strap from the rear canopy bow that is secured into a cleat or bracket between the occupant's shoulders with some type of quick release connection. This is not a final design but I believe several folks have variations of that idea already in use.
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