Contrary to what one would expect, there is a large back draft of air inside the cockpit coming from the back edge of the canopy flowing right down the back of your neck with the canopy not fully closed and latched. I have had this experience on two occasions. Both times required an immediate return to the airport to properly secure the latch. And, yes, as others have mentioned, my experiences showed me that the canopy is impossible to move while in flight once you take off with it in such a position. That means forward or backwards. It would not budge from its position. Granted I did not struggle long with it when it happened. Trying to struggle with closing the canopy while maintaining control of the flight was not something I wished to spend much time with. As for removing the canopy, well, that would not be something I personally would want to experiment with so if you do experiment with this, please report back your findings. I would not expect this aircraft to perform well without the canopy. And I don't just mean speed-wise. I would expect there could be some rather drastic differences in control characteristics to deal with. I would have no desire to personally test that hypothesis out though.
It seems to me if one would wish to fly in an open cockpit environment one should seek out an open cockpit design to enjoy.
