RV-10 door incident

Hi guys:

A good friend of mine here in the Minneapolis area recently made the first flight of his new RV-10. It is a beautiful machine with a full Chelton EFIS package. I have an interest in the initial testing of this airplane as I will be helping to fly off the 40 hours over the next few weeks.

Sunday during a normal takeoff, my friend had the left door suddently rip off the airplane!! This happened at about 100 ft above the runway. A cool head prevailed and he circled back to land the "open cockpit" RV-10. Believe it or not, the door was laying in the middle of the runway.

After retreiving the door and taxiing in, it turned out the door was amazingly unscathed. One corner had a small amount of damage and a couple scratches on the plexiglas. No other damage to the airframe. The hinges had cleanly broken and the snubber had pulled out the pop rivets which held it in place.

As it turned out, even though the door latch was secure, apparently the rear pin was latched outside the airplane. In other words, since the door is somewhat flexible, one has to be careful that one does not assume the rear pin in extended into the door frame.

So the moral of the story is that it might be a wise idea to built your RV-10 with 4 microswitches and a door latch warning system to be certain that the doors and pins are secure.

Holy moly, Doug. Great to hear all are OK. I'm sure Van's would be interested in hearing about this, as it provides data points they probably don't have.

Thanks for the update and congrats on your friend's 'flying the plane'.

Best,
Doug

Oh our initial test pilot is a pretty cool guy. Tens of thousands of hours as a military and airline pilot. But it probably got his heart rate up a couple beats for a minute.

I am looking forward to flying the -10 which I will after getting back from LOE.

Great Doug.....you get to fly that beautiful machine while I boil with envy. Who did you have to bribe to get that gig?!?!

All kidding aside, I'm really glad to hear everything came out alright and I can't wait to see it in the air again soon.

That being said, I'm almost 100% sure you'll be needing some ballast in that thing, and probably some training on that Chelton EFIS (since those big glass EFIS screens are so foreign to you) whilst it's in the air so I'll be glad to oblige!

On a separate note:

Everyone should be so lucky as to have this regiment of test pilots....the 1st test pilot is one of the best RV pilots you'll likely ever meet (and in general), but Doug is being a bit modest....you see....he's no greenhorn in the saddle either - I suspect he'll do a decent job himself! Maybe to test your constitution, we can rig the other door to come of during one of your flights, then we'll see who did better

Cheers,
Stein.

dougweil said:

So the moral of the story is that it might be a wise idea to built your RV-10 with 4 microswitches and a door latch warning system to be certain that the doors and pins are secure.

Click to expand...

The yellow factory -10 has a system just like this, with annunciators on the panel. Don't know if this is part of the design or a prototype or what, but it sure looked like a good idea.

Glad it worked out OK. You need both doors, because it's going to get cold up here pretty soon!

Doug:

I did the DAR inspection on the 3rd RV-10 to fly.

It was reported to me that a door came off it while they were taking off on the 3rd test flight for the same cause you reported.

I wonder how common this is.

Gary

dougweil said:

Hi guys:


Sunday during a normal takeoff, my friend had the left door suddently rip off the airplane!! This happened at about 100 ft above the runway. A cool head prevailed and he circled back to land the "open cockpit" RV-10. Believe it or not, the door was laying in the middle of the runway.

After retreiving the door and taxiing in, it turned out the door was amazingly unscathed. One corner had a small amount of damage and a couple scratches on the plexiglas. No other damage to the airframe. The hinges had cleanly broken and the snubber had pulled out the pop rivets which held it in place.

As it turned out, even though the door latch was secure, apparently the rear pin was latched outside the airplane. In other words, since the door is somewhat flexible, one has to be careful that one does not assume the rear pin in extended into the door frame.

So the moral of the story is that it might be a wise idea to built your RV-10 with 4 microswitches and a door latch warning system to be certain that the doors and pins are secure.

Click to expand...

More Door info

During my transition training in the 10, I was instructed to ALWAYS LOOK AT THE REAR LATCH ON THE DOORS AS THEY ARE CLOSING. I have also closed the door and missed the locking hole. It is somewhat easy to do. The factory is working on a system that will notify you if the door is ajar. They are looking at a couple of methods to accomplish this. The issue with the door coming off on N410RV in Colorado on the way to Sun and Fun was cause by a different problem that was solved before the kit became available. Randy

Randy DeBauw said:

[snip]The factory is working on a system that will notify you if the door is ajar. They are looking at a couple of methods to accomplish this. [snip]

Click to expand...

I exchanged emails with Tom Green & Ken Krueger about this today. There is a door latch indicator kit which has been incorporated into all RV-10 kits shipping out now and the kit has been sent to all holders of kits already in the field.

As others have said, a checklist item to physically verify full closed is appropriate. Even without a door latch indicator system, both RV-10 rear pins can easily be checked from the pilot's seat by reaching around the F-1005C Bulkhead Side Channel and feeling for the end of the pin protruding through.

In my RV-6, my before-crossing-the-runway-threshold verbal callout is:

"GIFT, STP, Canopy"

The passenger thinks I'm corny saying this out loud, but it covers, as Ross says, all the 'killer' items.


Best,
Doug

I'll be looking at the -10 tomorrow as the builder hopes to have the repair accomplished and new hinges installed. We hope to fly it again tomorrow afternoon.

You can bet that Doors - Closed and Latched is on the checklist. I'll advise the builder as to Van's proposed annunciator system.

Thanks!!