NTSB Report on Bill Phillips' Accident

"vaughn" wrote in message
...

"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
...

Let's play NTSB here, and step through the known facts.

1. Was the canopy open at time of impact?

A. No damage to the canopy latches, and significant sideways impact
damage to the canopy hinges. Canopy was probably open at the time of
impact.

Also in the report supporting this conclusion a The witnesses to the
crash who "... saw objects fall, ...off of or out of the airplane."

AND: "Law enforcement personnel that initially responded to the accident
site went to the area specified by the witnesses as the location where the
objects departed the airplane. At this location, personal effects
including clothing were identified."

Unless Bill and his wife were busily stuffing these items out the canopy
vent door just to confuse us, there seems little doubt that the canopy was
open at the time of the impact. We can speculate about everything else,
but this part of the accident sequence seems pretty sure to me.

Vaughn


Thank you for bringing the discussion back to the area of discussion most
applicable to this particular forum.

There is a good reason that I have placed several posts that would seem to
put me on both sides of the question of Bill's condition; and that reason is
that I really am. I believe that my position is reasonable and correct for
the following reason. Even if he was taking prohibited medications, and
overdosed as well, and then added one of the two most frequently fatal
deseases of pilots, Get-home-itis or Get-there-itis, and additional
outrages; we are still left with important questions that should interest us
as home-builders and potential home-builders:
1) Was the canopy open/unlatched?
(It very probably was)
2) Could this happen to an umimpaired pilot?
(Obviously yes, since it has happened several times)
3) Could an open/unlatched canopy be prevented, or
could the results be mitigated in a cost effective way?
(I think so, and think it needs further discussion)

As Stealth has pointed out, those canopies appear not to be a fail safe
design. One would initially presume that they would only open slightly and
maintain a slightly open position in trail, which was true in at lease one
instance and might presumably have been true of the test aircraft. However,
at least one other example apears to have behaved quite differently and I
personally doubt that the difference in shape would need to be much greater
than the thickness of a coat of paint to cause a dramatic difference in
behavior.

I suspect that a safety catch of a type common on the engine hoods of
automobiles and placed close enough to the latched position to preclude
oscillation, accompanied by the installation of a warning lamp when the
canopy is not in its fully latched position, would both mitigate the result
of an unlatched canopy and make the occurance less likely.

I still would not personally choose a hinged canopy; but those improvements
should be sufficient to render my other criticisms nearly moot.

Peter