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Polished RV & melting canopy???

B

BruceW

Well Known Member
Hanger story or fact???
Im in Phase 1 for my RV-7 with polished wings.
While cruzing east to west, the wing reflection bears in.
Im breaking in the engine, just thinking of possible things to go wrong.
My mind wanders to the stories of melting canopies due to polished wings.

Any truth to this story? Any reasonable measures to prevent it???
As always, speculation is nice, but responses with real experience is nice.
Thanks as always to a great forum.
 
I'm polished too

and in Las Vegas. Only have one summer cycle on it (110 degrees +), but I've had no problems so far. I have had several occasions when I felt very hot and bright sun on my face while in and outside the plane. Given the reports, I've been careful to feel for high temps of the canopy itself. Never even warm to the touch (at least compared to ambient temp.). I know the canopy does block some of the UV rays because my transitions lenses never darken under the canopy. To me, this indicates that there could be some heat absorption in the canopy itself. Still, never experienced it to date.

I carry a light canopy cover for parking for longer periods in the heat, just in case.

Interested in first hand reports too.
 
Tweety is a 1996 RV-6 that's been polished all its life. Original canopy. No indications of heat damage.

I suspect you'd need to have a contributing factor like leaving one of those peel-and-stick sunshades on it in the sun or something like that.
 
Gents I saw melted canopy and description somewhere on the Net couple years ago. Will dig the archives. It was something small, polished (not RV) with dark tinted canopy. Sonex maybe??? Or Zenith?? I bookmarked the link on old computer will report if found.
 
I saw Dave Anders's record setting RV4 canopy badly deformed by reflected heat in the early 90's. He subsequently painted the airplane.

Martin Sutter
Building and flying RV's since 1988
EAA Technical Counselor
 
Martin Sutter said:
I saw Dave Anders's record setting RV4 canopy badly deformed by reflected heat in the early 90's. He subsequently painted the airplane.
Click to expand...
I'm betting that the damage occurred while the aircraft was parked. The airflow will help keep the canopy cool when flying, but not when parked.
 
I've been flying my 6 polished for 15 years and to date no sign of any type of melting or any other effect on the canopy. I go to every fly in I can in the summer and the airplane sits out in the sun. I do hangar the plane when not flying. Its a slider and I usually leave the canopy open when parked in the summer so its not so hot to get back into ..... don't know if that has any effect on it. I would also like to hear from someone who actually had it happen to them, not just hear say, I would like to have all the details.
Shine'r (Flying the Western Pa skies .... when its warm)
 
I saw an RV-4 or RV-8 (I don't recall exactly which) parked up here in northern CA that had a slightly sunken canopy top. The owner said that he figured his internal aluminized sunscreen concentrated the sun's rays and caused sufficient localized heating to warp the canopy.
 
Mine has 75 hr. No problem yet but still
trying to figure out how to get the right side
of my face the same shade as the left.

Toasty but SWEEEEEET.:D
 
Not with polished wings but...... About 3 year ago I went to the cable airshow and I was looking at an RV-7. He had the standard vans canopy. Something did not looked quite right and it took me a few second to figure it out. The top of the instrument panel was smoking. The canopy was acting as a magnifier. I started asking who's plane it was but no one knew. Few seconds later the top of the instrument panel cought on fire. I jumped on the wing, opened the tip up canopy and put the fire out. Never found out who's airplane it was. I touched the canopy and it was very hot.
 
Martin Sutter said:
I saw Dave Anders's record setting RV4 canopy badly deformed by reflected heat in the early 90's. He subsequently painted the airplane.

Martin Sutter
Building and flying RV's since 1988
EAA Technical Counselor
Click to expand...

Kevin Horton said:
I'm betting that the damage occurred while the aircraft was parked. The airflow will help keep the canopy cool when flying, but not when parked.
Click to expand...


Dave's canopy was OPEN and the airplane was parked. Both Martin and Kevin are correct.
 
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