NTSB Report on Bill Phillips' Accident

"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
...
cavelamb wrote:
Ron Wanttaja wrote:
The NTSB has released the factual report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?...LA016& akey=1

Well, kids, there you have it.

Well... not COMPLETELY cut and dried.

We've still got the issue about the main driver of the accident
sequence...whether the canopy was open, and how difficult an open-canopy
situation is to handle.

A number of Lancair owners have encountered open canopies and reported
that control was no big deal. However, there have been three recent
Lancair accidents that involved open canopies. The pilot survived the
most latest one, and gives a rather hair-raising report of what the plane
was like to fly.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?...LA207& akey=1

From the above report, you can see that the open-canopy accidents are
catching the NTSB's notice.

When the NTSB comes up with a "Probable Cause," they seem to factor in
what a competent pilot should have been able to accomplish, in those
circumstances. You'll see a lot of accident reports which list Pilot
Error as the cause, even though the accident began with a mechanical
failure, because the investigator thought the pilot should have been able
to force-land safely.

Works the other way, too. If the NTSB concludes that the aircraft was
uncontrollable with the canopy open, that'll be listed as the primary
cause.

From what I can tell reading the report, it appears that the canopy *was*
open. The latches were undamaged; the ground impact twisted the hinges
forward and to the left, which probably wouldn't have happened if the
canopy was properly latched.

--------much snipped----------
I reached the same conclusion, that the canopy was open; and also that the
remarks about the boarding stairs were poorly phrased and more likely should
have read that the stairs wuld retract as the canopy was lowered to be
latched.

In any case, despite BWB's quirks and medications we do keep coming bach to
the matter of the canopy, and perhaps to the matter of hinged forward
canopies in general. It is certainly worrysome, although not surprising,
that two documented cases of canopies opening at or after takeoff had such
radically different symptoms. From the little that I have read about boat
hulls and the use of a slight "spoon area near the transome to prevent
oscillation, I am inclined to infer that the difference between a canopy
that might simply open slightly in trail and one which might oscillate
wildly could be a nearly imperceptable difference near the upper trailing
edge--and could easily be less than the thickness of the paint on the canopy
frame.

Peter
My conclusion does not please me!