Canopies detaching in flight

[raytol]

G'Day All,

In the last two weeks in Australia we have had two canopies depart the aircraft in flight! Both were Grob 109a (before the "b" model). I have noticed that passengers grab for the emergency release handle when getting themselves in to the seat. I have my handle wired with multiple strands of copper wire. I will be checking more carefully for it being pulled out before every flight in future!

Anyone know where we could get either canopy frames off wrecked aircraft or new ones.

Who owns the Type Certificate for the 109a? Would the production (moulds)molds still exist somewhere for the canopy frame or complete aircraft?

I'm thinking of making a mould/mold for this part if anyone else is interested.

Ray Tolhurst

Grob 109a

VH-ZAK

YCDN

Australia

[rayjb60]

Wow, passengers grab for the red handle....you should label it "Self Destruct" or "Ejection Seat" and see if they still go for it.

Sorry to hear about your inadvertent losses, non aviation folks are rather clueless and do things that make no sense to the rest of us aviators.

Just out of curiosity, what path does the canopy take once it departs. Does it miss the tail?

If you'd have inflight video of those occurrences with the passengers reactions I'll bet you would have become an overnight youtube celebrity and end up on a talk or reality show, earning enough $$$ to replace those canopies or perhaps even the entire plane.

Life is full of adventure for aviators!

Ray B

Edited March 2, 2012 by rayjb60

[eugenio]

The TC Holder for the G109 is Grob Aerospace, while for gliders is LTB Rudolf Lindner. I do not know if they still have the tooling to produce the parts since production stopped years ago. You should check in some german workshops who may have some wrecked G109 fuselages.

Eugenio

[Richard Pearl]

I'm on holiday here in Cabo San Lucas and don't have access to all my data until next week, but two places to start will be a canopy person here in California, plus perhaps Airborne Composites in England - Tim Dewes. he's got the largest operation re Grob TMG's and might have a handle on replacement canopy frames. I don't have his email handy but suggest looking around the internet

[raytol]

Gee 109's are a great aircraft.

Both of the canopies left the aircraft without hitting the tailplane and I believe both were flown back to their base airfield. Ruffled hair and lost sunglasses is better than lost tailplane!

Thanks Eugenio I will check out where the if the moulds still exist. I did hear some time ago that someone in England has them, I will check with Tim Dewes if it is him.

We have a very good canopy maker here in Australia who does a wonderful job of the perspex.

I have now included in my pre-takeoff checklist to unclip the rope I have stopping the open canopy from blowing forward and check the copper wire tie on the canopy eject handle!

Regards to all.

Ray Tolhurst

VH-ZAK

[Eero]

Hello from Finland,

We had last week an accident with our Grob 109A in which the plane had hard landing. Gear and propeller destroyed but student pilot walked out without hurting himself. The canopy of the plane was not locked and it opened in the takeoff when he was at about 100ft over the runway. The student pilot was flying on his 4th solo and he crabbed the handle trying to close the canopy. Without success as you can imagine. So he flew with one hand in the stick and the other in the canopy handle.

In the landing he opened the air brakes and kept it half open with his knee still keeping one hand in the canopy handle. The result was that airbrakes closed in the first touch down and the plane bounced in the air stalling to runway with the result I described earlier.

Has anyone had any experience of flying the 109A model with canopy lock open? How does it behave in the air flow? We assume that it opens 25-30 centimeters up but the plane will be in control.

Nice flights to all,

Eero

[Eero]

Hello from Finland,

We had last week an accident with our Grob 109A in which the plane had hard landing. Gear and propeller destroyed but student pilot walked out without hurting himself. The canopy of the plane was not locked and it opened in the takeoff when he was at about 100ft over the runway. The student pilot was flying on his 4th solo and he crabbed the handle trying to close the canopy. Without success as you can imagine. So he flew with one hand in the stick and the other in the canopy handle.

In the landing he opened the air brakes and kept it half open with his knee still keeping one hand in the canopy handle. The result was that airbrakes closed in the first touch down and the plane bounced in the air stalling to runway with the result I described earlier.

Has anyone had any experience of flying the 109A model with canopy lock open? How does it behave in the air flow? We assume that it opens 25-30 centimeters up but the plane will be in control.

Nice flights to all,

Eero

[Richard Pearl]

Ray and Eero

My apologies for the delay in posting this; I just came across it when trolling through some of the correspondence.

1. There was an in-flight canopy detachment from a G109 here in California several years ago. The experience was as Ray described it, i.e. it flew over the tailplane, along with everything else in the cockpit. The pilot wrote up the event and I posted it on one of the predecessor G109 groups. I'll see if I can retrieve it. The canopy retrieval made for a great story retelling.

2. Re what happens when the canopy is not locked but still attached, here I can offer some personal perspective. I was taking off from a southern Nevada commercial airport and allowed myself to be rushed by the presence of a commercial airliner behind me who clearly wanted me to get going. Let me also state that having two CFI's in the cockpit is not always a guarantee of aviation precision. Anyway, after we became airborne the canopy started to rotate upwards. I was flying left seat, switched hands on the stick and grabbed for the canopy handle with my right hand. He grabbed for it with his left, held onto it, I went back to flying, and we entered the downward leg for a normal landing ("No, Tower, I'm not declaring an emergency and you can hold the crash trucks"). This was several years ago. I recall that we couldn't close it in flight but that it seemed to achieve attitude neutrality not very far up from the locked position. We were in control of the aircraft at all times. As they say, there are "do" lists and there are "check" lists. Do the "do", then check the "check".

[Richard Pearl]

Ray and Eero

My apologies for the delay in posting this; I just came across it when trolling through some of the correspondence.

1. There was an in-flight canopy detachment from a G109 here in California several years ago. The experience was as Ray described it, i.e. it flew over the tailplane, along with everything else in the cockpit. The pilot wrote up the event and I posted it on one of the predecessor G109 groups. I'll see if I can retrieve it. The canopy retrieval made for a great story retelling.

2. Re what happens when the canopy is not locked but still attached, here I can offer some personal perspective. I was taking off from a southern Nevada commercial airport and allowed myself to be rushed by the presence of a commercial airliner behind me who clearly wanted me to get going. Let me also state that having two CFI's in the cockpit is not always a guarantee of aviation precision. Anyway, after we became airborne the canopy started to rotate upwards. I was flying left seat, switched hands on the stick and grabbed for the canopy handle with my right hand. He grabbed for it with his left, held onto it, I went back to flying, and we entered the downward leg for a normal landing ("No, Tower, I'm not declaring an emergency and you can hold the crash trucks"). This was several years ago. I recall that we couldn't close it in flight but that it seemed to achieve attitude neutrality not very far up from the locked position. We were in control of the aircraft at all times. As they say, there are "do" lists and there are "check" lists. Do the "do", then check the "check".