Safety Switch no longer needed...for you Tommy.
I feel for you Tommy and have been there. Somewhat similar story, ready to takeoff and the local dummy ran up to tell me some inane nonsense. I shut down completely and was disturbed by the experience. Started over; but failed to secure the canopy. Just as I rotated it blew off as though it had explosive bolts. Completely cleared the aircraft. What a shock to be hit by that BLAST!!! Man, everything on my head went flying, including my upper lip blinding me as it went over my forehead!!
Good Grief, is difficult for one to force of the wind until it is experienced.
The side hinge worked just as Van designed and the canopy cleared the plane with no hits. I was able to abort the takeoff and return OK. Found the canopy all busted to bits and I just ordered another from Van.
This was back in April of 1995...Oh, I remember it well. I hired Chuck Brush, a very experienced builder to help me. I took off from work and Chuck and I worked 10 to 12 hour days for 2 solid weeks. Not too much beer consumed in evenings either. Put it on, take it off, put it on, take it off...getting it to fit, yada yada and so forth ad nauseum. Chuck would say, building and fitting the canopy is 25% of the airplane. That may be a bit of exagerration; but it feels like it at the time. At the end of two weeks it was on, painted and beautiful. Figure 10 hrs/day for two guys and that is 280 hours. 12 hrs/day works out to 336. There were some 14 hour days on weekends. Somewhere in there is what it took us and we humped it. Better builders may take less time, I don't know; but that is my first hand experience with the situation you describe.
On the safety switch, Chuck Brush wanted to install one and I refused. There was a secondary latch to press. After that experience, my left hand would automatically go to that latch about every 10 seconds for the next 100 hours of flying. As time went on, the time lapse between checking the latch finally evolved to about 45 seconds. I pressed it so much and so often, my left thumb still bears the calus. On a long cross country, I would bandage my thumb to keep it from bleeding. No Joke!!!
I'm telling you Tommy, a safety switch may be needed for someone else flying your -4; but YOU will never ever ever forget to latch your canopy!!! Save yourself some time and forget the safety switch....unless it is a sales item. There may be a lot of things I might fail to do in an RV-4; but securing the canopy prior to takeoff is NOT one of them!!!!!
Good luck and best regards,
Deal Fair
N34CB (RV-4)
George West, TX (8T6)