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Most STUPID mistake of all: closed canopy with no one inside! And problem solved!

A

ao.frog

Well Known Member
A couple of days ago, I made a mistake I've been afraid of doing for YEARS.... I managed to close the tip up canopy with the safety lock in the locked position!

Here's how I did it:
I was installing the Kooger Sunshade and during that process I was opening and closing the canopy several times to check the fit of the shade-channel before installing it for the final time.

I was also turning the safety-lock back and forth during the process to verify that the top end of the handle wouldn't interfer with the channel.

During one of the "canopy-lowerings", the handle was in the locked position and suddenly the canopy went all the way down with a small "thump".... AAARRRGGHHH!!!!!

The lock was now preventing canopy-opening just like it's designed to do, so NOW WHAT???? How do I get the canopy open again...?????

2ziwpiu.jpg


As you can see, the extended tip of the handle is pointing forward. That means that the shorter tip is pointing towards the rollbar. This is the ONLY WAY the handle could be positioned to be able to slide past the roll bar and prevent canopy-opening again.

I gathered some people and we all took a close look at the problem: how to turn the safety handle the required 90* so the canopy could be re-opened?

There's no acess from the top because I've installed a weatherstrip on top of the canopy.

One way could be to go through our homemade hatch on the fwd top deck skin (just in front of the canopy)

Another way could be to drill a small hole in the skin just aft of the aft window.

We could drill a small hole on the canopy itself, just above the safetyhandle. Then a small tool could be used to grab the cotterpin in the handle from above and turn the handle.

Then one guy came up with the ultimate sollution: through the slot in the fuse which are for the primary canopy lock!

He cut and bent a alu-channel which looked like this:

hvv72x.jpg




Then it was inserted through the slot in the fuse:

152kltg.jpg




Positoned towards the handle:

152kltg.jpg


nnnzig.jpg





Then a little pressure was put on the alu-channel, and suddenly the lock turned! Then it was just to put enough pressure on it to make it turn so it was paralell to the rollbar and voila! The canopy could be opened! PHEW!

ivkai0.jpg



That ended 30 mins of pure horror- and disaster-thoughts in my head.... YESSSS!!!!!!




Over the years, I've been thinking how to get back into the cockpit if the safety-handle ever schould inadvertently get locked. This could happen when towing, pushing or transporting the plane over a distance, for example to and from the paintshop, or when moving from home to the airport for final assembly.

To prevent this, I've secured the safetylock in open position with gaffa-tape during such moves.

It has never occured to me that it could happen during normal operation of the canopy, but now I know....

So I want to share this with all of you who have tipup's, just in case you'll ever be as stupid as I was.... :eek:
 
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Many years ago, there was a post on this web site with pictures that showed how to trim the UHMW block that holds the "D" handle and add a spring. The result is such that the D handle is spring loaded in the up direction. When the handle is parallel to the roll bar, the handle nests against the canopy bow and can not turn accidentally. To lock the canopy, pull down and twist 90* as normal.
 
Here is my version

Here is a link to my version. There are other ways to do it. Like noelf said, there was a flurry of posts about this roughly 5 years ago that caused me to modify mine.

Tip up lock anti-rotation method

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Closed canopy

I wonder where your buddy learned that trick? I suspect he may be close to my age and remembers how we used to get into our locked cars when the keys were inside, very similar to your predicament. Of course that was back in the day when the locks had little buttons you could grab onto.

In fact, I got a free dinner once from the owner of a Mexican restaurant here in St Louis who was telling me how his car had been sitting in the parking lot all weekend because he locked his keys in it.

Because of my "training" in auto problem solving in high school I was able to get his car open with a coat hangar. You just never know when a previous skill may come in handy building an RV!

Oly
 
I had worried about the same thing

on my -6A tip-up. I have been looking at going in through the side vents with a couple of "coat-hangers" type of device ------ have not tried it yet.

Ron
 
Locked Canopy

Anytime I need to shut the canopy completely, I use either a small Velcro loop of tape (soft part of Velcro facing out) and slide over each tip of canopy lock, or a small rubberband over each tip. Prevents the problem from happening all together. I have woken up in the middle of the night thinking of that problem.
 
Locked out

Same thing happened to me 1000 miles away from home on my way to Osh last year. I used a coat hanger which worked perfectly. :cool:
 
Is that built per plans?

How is someone supposed to unlatch the canopy from the outside to rescue the occupants in a case of emergency? I wouldn't think that would pass final inspection. The slider canopy can be opened equally from inside or out. Never looked that closely at a tip-up but they should be the same in terms of rescue, no?
Bevan
 
Bevan said:
How is someone supposed to unlatch the canopy from the outside to rescue the occupants in a case of emergency? I wouldn't think that would pass final inspection. The slider canopy can be opened equally from inside or out. Never looked that closely at a tip-up but they should be the same in terms of rescue, no?
Bevan
Click to expand...

In a situation that requires the occupants to be rescued, the canopy is expendable and easily penetrated
 
Per plans...

Bevan said:
How is someone supposed to unlatch the canopy from the outside to rescue the occupants in a case of emergency? I wouldn't think that would pass final inspection. The slider canopy can be opened equally from inside or out. Never looked that closely at a tip-up but they should be the same in terms of rescue, no?
Bevan
Click to expand...


The plane is built according to plans and there's no way a locked canopy can be unlocked completely from the outside.
The primary lock can be unlocked but the safetylock (the handle) can only be opened from the inside.

Thus, the plane passed the final inspection easily. ;)
 
At least the engine wasn't running! (that would have been a bigger mistake). We had a case here about 10 years back where someone was hand-propping their vintage tail dragger and didn't have it tied down or the brakes set. Once the engine caught, it proceeded to taxi and take off and fly for a few hours before it ran the tanks dry. That would be the most stupid mistake ever.

Great ingenuity! It's always fun to build new tools!
 
A few things stand out to me:

I am not sure if they had enough equipment to do that job.

Wow, what a crude, messy solution.

Dang, that canopy is thick.

I bet $182k is just for parts not labor.

There is no end of ways to spend other peoples money - OPM
 
Canopy closing story....

One day several years ago, Phil Campbell (a VAF member) and I were at Beeville, TX, KBEA watching an idiot friend of ours (hereinafter referred to as PILOT) hand prop his perfectly functional RV-6. An operation he performed regularly. He also had a Luscombe 8-E with a good electric system; and he always hand propped it too. When asked WHY he did this with a functioning starter system, he would reply: "...to save my starter." :eek:

So Phil and I kick back to watch PILOT do his act. He had the tailwheel secured with a rope w/slipknot. He had the canopy open and as soon as it started, of course it slammed shut and locked him out. What to do, what to do?? Well, I had a 92 Ford F-150 pickup with a pliable wire whip antenna. Phil was able to work it around through the back and get it unlatched. There was some minor paint damage and it destroyed the looks of my antenna. :mad: Good Grief. What an un-necessary saga!!

Considering the availability of the functioning starter system, this had to be one of the dumbest stunts we had ever seen. The good thing about it was that PILOT did learn a lesson and was broken of this routine. :rolleyes: A.O. your mistake wasn't near this stupid. This almost matches Bill's saga; but at least he had it tied down.

Cheers all,
 
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