Van's Canopy Safety Latch

A long time ago someone had a canopy go away in flight becuase the canopy was accidentally opened. Afterwards, Van's came out with a retrofit safety latch. I was wondering how many of these actually got installed? If you have installed it, how do you like it?

AND........

Does this safety latch alow you to open the canopy an inch or so to let cool air in while taxing......I know a dumb ____ that almost lost his RV4 canopy last weekend while adding power to taxi on grass with the canopy latch open.....guess who that was.

No. I drilled a second set of holes above the first, and moved the forward latch pushrod to just inside the canopy structure rather than going through it. I used a peice of 0.063 drilled for the pushrod and riveted to the front canopy bow. Works great. I actually forgot to close my canopy once and took off, realized what happened, kept the speed down came around and landed. No damage, thank the Good Lord.

And I can't imagine why or how the Van's safety latch does anything to make it safer. If you don't close the canopy, the safety latch does not latch either.

I've got one

Not much to say about. It's there.

I, like Brent, could not see what the 'safety catch' added. In order to provide a second catch, and a taxi position I did this.

I also put a relay, which requires the forward rod of the primary canopy lock to be through the hole, to stop an audio warning from the AFS3400.

It all works well for me. I have put very large 'OPEN' and 'CLOSED' labels on the handle since the primary canopy lock system works the opposite to most aircraft I have flown, though if you catch it early in your build, I think you could make it work in the normal way, as some builders have done.

I do not think there is any need for an extra latch for the canopy. The problem is the risk of forgetting to lock the canopy with the ordinary latch.
I have mounted a micro switch to alarm if the canopy is not properly locked.
To not have any need to open the canopy during taxiing or waiting on the ground, I have mounted air intakes of model RV-10.
See images...