Today was thermic and bumpy. The tail came up, the aircraft rose and swung hard left. As I got it straight, It rolled hard right. Eventually, I had it pointing in the right direction and it bounced and lurched in the bubbly air climbing to around 150 feet before the canopy came open, bypassing the safety catch and swinging all the way to the right.

I really wanted to survive the day. Madam wants to go and see the Rolling Stones on Tuesday and had I been too dead to drive us up to London, she would have killed me.

The mantra is FTFA and that is what I did. Wings level, straighten up, stick forward to level attitude. Grab the canopy edge and slam it shut. Lever fully forward.  Lid on, aircraft under control. Take stock. My clip on sunglasses are in the back somewhere but my spectacles are still on. My headset is in the back. It is noisy. Everything else is fairly normal apart from the slight difficulty of being unable to move my arms because where I turned to get the canopy, the seat belts had fallen down my shoulders and were now pinioning me into the seat. I had now decided that the ground was a better place to be but was belting along the downwind WOT at 85 MPH
straight and level at 500 feet in air that really demanded Va. I wriggled my left arm free and used it to pull the right hand belt into place. Reduce power. Set up to land. As I touched down, the aircraft glanced off and started to climb. Fast. It was all getting Ugly so full power and away. The next circuit was mercifully uneventful and the landing was the best of the last four.
I put the aeroplane back in the hangar and drove home. Enough excitement for one day!

Tom you got bigger balls than me. That’s why I fly in the morning when the air is stable. I fly to have fun in the air...not get beat up. Glad you landed safely.

Monte

Thanks Monte. Over here, stable air is so rare it would be hard to remain current. Flying nearly every week has really helped with my aircraft handling. It might just have saved my skin yesterday..

Blimey, Tom, you lead an exciting life.

Glad you erred on the living side, and weren't off to see the Grateful Dead. You saw off that miserable geezer with the scythe thingy. . .

I hate turbulence, & usually choose to fly early morning over here, where in summer temps of 40º+ are not uncommon. But as you say, being able to handle those conditions is a strong plus point on the survival stakes. Nice one!

Bruce

WELL done Tom.

It happened to me. I mistakenly deliberately operated the catch to open it. Not such a good outcome.

For the benefit of the fleet would you expand on how the second safety latch came to fail you?

Bounced by the turbulence, I think and just rattled clear on about the third shake.

Might have to rethink that "safety catch"....   Anything that opens unexpectedly is probably neither a "catch" nor "safe".

Agreed. It is due a good looking at over the weekend.

Some years ago Tom, a mate who had a 'Max had exactly the same prob, canopy opened at around 100'.... he stalled in, LANDING ON HIS WIFE! She went through the rotating prop which scalped her neatly along the hair line of her forehead and she also suffered a broken ankle, sadly his dog (which she was walking on the airfield at the time was killed), he walked away! True story I hasten to add. His wife divorced him and sold her story to the papers, getting around £10k for her story. This was around 1996 at a strip near Harwell.

The canopy is the second priority.  Fly the aeroplane. I didn't stall in because I got wings level and stick forward before sorting the rest out. I may have been lucky but the aircraft seemed to be able to maintain height until I could deal with the issue.
That aircraft you mention (KZ) has been through a few owners since (including Jeremy Harris who may have developed his streamlined struts on it,) and it is still flying.

Oh, and for the record, The Rolling Stones are every bit as good as they ever were and that is Very Good Indeed!

Paul was working for me at the time; my (now) ex called me at work to ask if I'd seen the papers! Needless to say he didn't turn up for work. Ironically, he had agreed to buy G-NADS recently but somehow comms became confused and I ended up with her. By the way, he was an RN pilot, flying Sea Vixens off Carriers in his former existence; he did know how to fly

By the way, regarding the Latch. When I first got NADS, the catch had a tendency to not fasten properly. It was all in the 'joggle', the geometry simply wasn't right. At first I partly cured it by 'standing it off' with a couple of washers, but then I removed it and gave it a bit of violence in the vice! It's now very positive and I'm confident it wouldn't give up.

However, I'm fitting the open canopy option this week, that should ensure crap weather for the rest of the Summer!  

Yes, I thought a bit of designer violence would help. The clip is a bit too springy and I wonder if a slight vertical crease might make it more positive.

Wow! that was very unexpected. Canopy open, harness off shoulder, headset off... fortunately your reaction was just fine. Congratulations! Still reminds us about several other issues we should be paying more attention.
I bet the Rolling Stones sound better than ever that afternoon!
Thanks for sharing your experience.

Quoted from Max SSDR

Some years ago Tom, a mate who had a 'Max had exactly the same prob, canopy opened at around 100'.... he stalled in, LANDING ON HIS WIFE! She went through the rotating prop which scalped her neatly along the hair line of her forehead and she also suffered a broken ankle, sadly his dog (which she was walking on the airfield at the time was killed), he walked away! True story I hasten to add. His wife divorced him and sold her story to the papers, getting around £10k for her story. This was around 1996 at a strip near Harwell.

Sounds like a bit on purpose "accident"

Quoted from Ricardo

Sounds like a bit on purpose "accident"

Certainly a hair raising accident  

Well, I won't have to worry about the wife as an audience down by my strip anymore!!!

Something like it happened in the US a few years back.  Husband lost control of new plane on takeoff.  Wife was taking pictures next to the runway.  Fatal result.

Quoted from tomshep

Today was thermic and bumpy.

Its a good thing you didn't die because if you did it sounds like madam would of killed ya even deader.
This may be common knowledge or maybe not. There are only a few ways you can avoid the bumps of thermals. Don't fly in the middle of the day when the sun is heating the earth, catch a rare day when there is a inversion layer, and fly above the clouds. even my autogyro which has a very high wing loading can rise in thermals. mother nature is very powerful and you are a piss ant!  

Congratulations Tom. You are a real pilot! We can repeat procedural training over and over, but we don't know how we will actually respond in a potentially disastrous situation until we actually find ourselves in the middle of one. You stayed in the fight, and you immediately invoked RULE # ONE - the two most important procedures! There is no guarantee this will allow you to come out the other end unscathed, but this is really about all one can do. It's amazing how an aircraft will keep flying when logic seems to dictate it's just going to fail. This is the point where some just give up and accept fate.

I have had several homebuilt aircraft incidents that convinced me I was living through the last moments of my life, but just like you, I stayed in the fight and found myself on the ground and still in one piece when all was said and done. I hoped no one was watching as I exited the aircraft. I certainly was not cutting the heroic pilot figure, and I'm sure my shaking knees were visible from some distance away! A few experiences like this invoke a whole new awareness and attitude. If you felt invincible before, that sensation may start to fade and leave you with the realization that this avocation is serious, unforgiving, and potentially deadly. Yes...It CAN happen to you.

Your experience also references comments I have made over the years about the reality of flying a very light aircraft. Maxes are superb-flying little beasts...but they are all basically ultralights! Glad to hear you made it.

Thank you all for the kind sentiments expressed.  Looking forward to flying again at the weekend - weather permitting!

An aside. One thing that made a positive contribution to the survivability of the incident was the fact that I had a very good friction lock on the throttle. I was in a full power climb when this happened. Had the throttle shut on me, I would not have been able to maintain airspeed. As it was, I only had to maintain control of an aircraft with power and lift. It took enough of the potential problem away that I could focus solely on getting the aircraft's attitude under control and then gave me a spare hand to get the canopy shut again. Check yours and make sure it will hold WOT. One day, you might be glad of it.

Quoted from tomshep

An aside. One thing that made a positive contribution to the survivability of the incident was the fact that I had a very good friction lock on the throttle. I was in a full power climb when this happened. Had the throttle shut on me, I would not have been able to maintain airspeed. As it was, I only had to maintain control of an aircraft with power and lift. It took enough of the potential problem away that I could focus solely on getting the aircraft's attitude under control and then gave me a spare hand to get the canopy shut again. Check yours and make sure it will hold WOT. One day, you might be glad of it.

I lost my flying buddy in a similar way, not that it killed him but it scared him out of ever flying again.