Canopy choice and new fighters
 

It seems like a common theme of referencing old fighters comes up quite a bit in the discussion of canopy choice. I though I would share some perspective relative to new fighters.

F/A-18: It has a tip up canopy, but it tips up backwards so it is more like the slider on the RV with the canopy bow in your field of view. And you can taxi with the canopy up, but you cannot MOVE the canopy while the aircraft is in motion, it must either be up or down. The glare shield does allow you to fly it as a convertible if the canopy is jettisoned airborne. It will be very windy, but you can do it. That canopy bow does make it so you have to bob and weave your head to look for targets on the ground and other aircraft. Make no mistake, it hinders visibility. Though you get used to the canopy bow and can determine roll in angles by how may bolts up the canopy bow a ground target is, or how many angles off the tail of an adversary you are buy how far from the canopy bow he is.





F-16: It also has a tip up canopy that goes backwards, but there is no canopy bow support as the entire canopy goes up. So it is more like the RV tip up in that regard. Man visibility is incredible! But you lose the sight references from the Hornet. Then again, if you grew up without a canopy bow you don't have those sight references to begin with. I must admit, I got very used to the visibility in this bad boy. I had to steal a picture from the net of an open canopy shot of the Thunderbirds as I didn't have any pictures of my own.





Now let's look at the F-35: This sucker tips forward just like the RV canopy. I'll be honest, the tip forward looks a little weird, especially on a fighter since I'm not used to seeing it. But what is worse is that it still has a canopy bow! So the entire canopy tips forward, but you retain the visibility restricting canopy bow! Who came up with that? So it is like the worst of both worlds.





Anyway, I figured it was time to references some more modern fighters rather than just the ones from WWII in the canopy controversy. Slider is like the Hornet and Tip Up is like the Viper. While I agree that the slider does look better, I'm not sure the canopy bow can be used to your advantage the way it can in the Hornet. I'm not flying an RV yet so I'll have to check them out before I buy one to see which I like best.

Good study!

I spent a lot of time last year trying to figure a way to do something "different" with the RV-3 canopy. the slider option makes ingess and egress difficult (it doesn't really slide back far enough), and has the roll bar. the Tip-over...well, do you know of any really sexy fighters with a tip-over?! I thought about the various styles in vogue today, including tip-forward and tip back, but couldn't come up with the the structure to support either of them. Thought about a scissor-action up (up, then back, or up, then forward)....and in the end, decided that it was all fairly silly.

Decided to go stock tip-over - no roll bar, bubble canopy, and in the air, no one knows that it tips over to the side....

Paul

The ability of pushing that slider back.............after landing on a hot stuffy day, is priceless! That's all I'll say... :D

L.Adamson --- RV6A/ slider

I like the "cool factor" of being able to slide the canopy back for ground manoeuvering, but now that i've flown the tip-up I won't go back. Working on the plane is easier, ingress/egress is easier. I didn't understand why someone would have a tip-up at all until I owned one.

As for the F-35 canopy: I note the string of what looks like detcord (or equivalent) running around the back of the canopy bow and along the railing. I suspect someone decided that a continuous bubble was better for manufacturing, and someone else thought that it would be a good idea to be able to blow the canopy and yet retain enough of a windscreen that you could still fly it. The bow was necessary to support the remaining piece of the bubble. At least, that's the best guess I can come up with.

For what it's worth, I think the slider looks better on the nosewheel aircraft, and the tip-up better on the tailwheels... Not sure why, something about how they sit when open on the ground just makes those combinations look "right" to me.

I doubt it is det cord. Det cord is usually in a zig zag pattern on the very top a-la the T-45 and the AV-8B. That tube is mostly likely a gas tube to provide pressure to the canopy seal and/or jettison system. The Hornet/Rhino has something similar as does the Viper and none of them have det cord. Jets with det cord typically don't have jettison-able canopies. I'm betting that the F-35 can jettison the canopy. Another point of fact here is that the Hornet/Rhino seat will just go through the canopy if it fails to jettison during the ejection sequence. The Viper will not. If the canopy doesn't go, the ejection sequence comes to a half. You then have to attempt manual jettison or "open" it in flight to get it to come off. And you better get your hand back quick because the ejection sequence starts back up automatically. I'm also guessing that the F-35 seat will go through the canopy if need be based on the spiky top of the seat.

I need to sit in both, but I think the visibility of the tip up will win for me.

With a small add-on, I can tip the canopy open enough to get my elbow out and planty of air in. :D

Just out of curiosity why don't you want to cut within 3 inches of the canopy frame?

This is true, and for the 0.05% of the time you spend in your airplane in this condition, the slider has the advantage. In the other 99.95%, the tip-up wins in every category.

To the OP- you really need to sit in, and fly, both types. You shouldn't have any trouble tracking down an example of each.

Consider this snippet from Raymer's "Aircraft Design..":



That elbow-on-the-sill cool factor stuff kinda evaporates when you get passed.....;)

Sexy tip over fighter?
 

[quote=Ironflight;541804]Good study!

I can't think of any fighter more sexy than a F 104 with the tip over canopy:
http://www.google.com/search?q=f+104...w=1028&bih=628
and wish mine tipped too, sometimes.
Bill McLean
RV-4 Slider