Suspected...? Show me the pictures and/or official report. Was the canopy
still tied to the wreck as found on the ground? I just don't believe it
unless the cables used were much heavier than the normal PDA cables and were
retained via adel clamps or some such. In all likelihood, connectors would
simply separate or the wires would pull out of the connectors, or the cables
would simply break.

Accident reports, it seems, often blame some unproveable happening and, if
the pilot doesn't survive, he usually gets more than his fair share of the
blame. My objection here is simply to the blind belief that something bad
will happen if you don't do what the "top pilots in the world" do.

Did you note in my previous reply that there is NOTHING connecting my canopy
to the fuselage other than the retention hook? That's not because I'm
afraid of bad things, it's simply for convenience.

I helped a local pilot with her FLARM installation on her new -29 and she
had the antennae mounted to the glare shield. To me the mounts looked
flimsy and would easily separate should the canopy be jettisoned in flight.
The down side was the extra long cable lengths needed to remove the canopy
and set it on the ground so that she could disconnect the cables. Same for
reinstallation of the canopy.

In writing this it occurs to me that those long cables would allow the
difference in velocity of the canopy and airframe to increase sufficiently
to easily snap the cables or mounts.


"Ramy" wrote in message
...
There was a fatality few years ago in Europe where the pilot did not
successfully bail out after a midair where the PDA wires connected to the
canopy where suspected as contributing factor.

Ramy