Hi Folks,
Last week during a local flight I experienced an event that I am trying to resolve.
Specifically, I was in an aggressive slip (1.5K feet per minute descent) for a couple of minutes when suddenly I felt a draft of air in the cockpit. There was no sudden sound or any noticeable change in handling of the airplane. Just started to feel a constant stream of air blowing just around the top of my head on the left side. Interestingly the draft was blowing from the aft to the front of the canopy.
The canopy has been pretty well sealed all these years and the draft was a surprise. Consequently, I decided to land at once. After shutting down the engine I decided to spend a good amount of time with canopy closed to see if I could see any obvious change in the canopy/canopy latch etc. I couldn't notice anything.
I have checked for the security of the entire canopy, cracks, any openings in the skirts etc. but no joy. I have had others take a good look as well but there is no obvious answer to what I experienced.
I have had a couple of flights since that day and everything is normal - no draft of air.
Any thoughts / ideas? Especially where and what to look for next?
I'd like to understand why this happened (I slip the aircraft very frequently, so this was a unique event).
Ashish
Last week during a local flight I experienced an event that I am trying to resolve.
Specifically, I was in an aggressive slip (1.5K feet per minute descent) for a couple of minutes when suddenly I felt a draft of air in the cockpit. There was no sudden sound or any noticeable change in handling of the airplane. Just started to feel a constant stream of air blowing just around the top of my head on the left side. Interestingly the draft was blowing from the aft to the front of the canopy.
The canopy has been pretty well sealed all these years and the draft was a surprise. Consequently, I decided to land at once. After shutting down the engine I decided to spend a good amount of time with canopy closed to see if I could see any obvious change in the canopy/canopy latch etc. I couldn't notice anything.
I have checked for the security of the entire canopy, cracks, any openings in the skirts etc. but no joy. I have had others take a good look as well but there is no obvious answer to what I experienced.
I have had a couple of flights since that day and everything is normal - no draft of air.
Any thoughts / ideas? Especially where and what to look for next?
I'd like to understand why this happened (I slip the aircraft very frequently, so this was a unique event).
Ashish