WWWSSAORGs!UGUSTsSoaring 25

T

he article “What I
Learned from My
Open Canopy Incident”
(R.A. Livingston, Soar-
ing, October 2018) re-
minded me of my simi-
lar incident. At the time
I was a member of the
Soaring Thunderbirds,
based at Wadsworth
Airport, 3G3. I was in a
partnership with anoth-
er member in an Open
Cirrus, N2791, and it
was this aircraft that I
flew that day, in a flight
which also proved to be
a learning incident.
Wadsworth Airport has two run-
ways, one roughly north-south, and
the other, 10-28, roughly east–west.
Gliders usually use 10-28, which is
slightly over 2,000 ft long. Its east-
ern end terminates at the north-south
runway, and the airport boundary,
marked by a chain link fence, is less
than 500 ft to the eastern end of the
runway. A busy road is on the other
side of the fence.

On the day in question, gliders were
using runway 28, and according to my
logbook, the wind was from the west
at 15 kt. After assembly, my glider was
towed to the runway, and I climbed in.
The canopy on the Open Cirrus had a
tongue on the top rear of the canopy,
which fit into a slot in the fuselage,
and the canopy was latched at the left-
hand side of the glider. The canopy

had to be fitted on after the pilot was

in the glider. This was usually done by

either myself, if my partner was fly-

ing, or my partner if I was flying, as

fitting the tongue into the slot was not

easy. Unfortunately, my partner was

not there that day, and I asked some-

one else to do this. The start of the tow

was quite normal. We lifted off about

halfway down the runway. At about

three-quarters of the way down the

runway, there was a bang, and the can-

opy slid into my lap. I quickly grabbed

the latch with my left hand to prevent

the canopy from flying off. However,

we seemed to be flying properly, and

I decided that I did not have enough

runway left to land straight ahead, and

I did not want to land in the corn field

beyond the airport boundary. Instead,

I elected to stay on tow, to gain some

height, and time, to figure out what to

do. My mind brought up the question

of how I could possibly land with-

out spoilers, for which I would need

my left hand. However, in my distant

past, I had flown gliders which did not

have spoilers, and one either forward

slipped to a landing, or performed S-

turns on final to lose height, or both,

so I decided that this

should not be a prob-

lem. Since the glider

seemed to be flying

normally, I chose to

stay on tow, then re-

lease when I was about

pattern altitude, and

fly the normal pattern

back to the field. This

brought up the ques-

tion of how to release,

since this required the

left hand also. Instead,

I squeezed the control

column between my

legs, and reached over

with my right hand to

release. This worked. I was at 1,000 ft,

and turned onto the downwind leg.

Halfway down the leg, I was much

lower than I expected to be. I consid-

ered making an immediate turn onto

base leg, but this was impossible due

to trees, and a building on the airport.

Instead, I angled the downwind leg

towards the runway to shorten the

base leg. Just before the wire fence, I

made a 180° turn that placed me on a

very short final in line with the grass at

the side of runway 28. Touchdown was

slightly beyond passing over the main

runway, and the glider came to a very

quick stop. I had just made it, without

using spoilers, or slipping!

The lesson from this is that an open

canopy can seriously degrade the sail-

plane’s glide ratio. A rough calculation

of my achieved glide ratio is between

2.5 and 3, way below the Cirrus’s pub-

lished value of 44. No wonder that I

did not have to use spoilers! I had nev-

er heard that an open canopy can have

this much effect on performance. Had

I known this, it would have been better

to return to runway 10, do S-turns to

lose altitude, and land downwind.

Another Open Canopy Incident

Jack Wilson

The canopy slid

“ into my lap.

“