December 27, 1997, was a beautiful, still, crisp winter day, and it took me only minutes to decide that I would be spending it in the sky in my Extra 300. Christmas was over, and I was looking forward to a day of aerobatics in the skies near Santa Barbara, California.
My first flight of the day was fantastic. The sun was gleaming off a perfectly flat ocean, the mountains were a verdant green amidst the rapidly warming afternoon sun, visibility was well in excess of 30 miles, the temperature was in the mid-70s, and there was not a cloud in the sky.
After a light lunch, I was ready for my second flight of the day. After the preflight, I pulled on my parachute and buckled in. The Santa Barbara Municipal Airport is surrounded by Class C airspace, and a call to the tower gave me a typical departure followed by a turn to 200 degrees toward the west to the practice area.
I taxied out, proceeded to the active runway, and did my runup. Tower cleared me for takeoff, and I swung onto the runway while I mentally rehearsed my final checklist items: "Canopy down and locked; aircraft trimmed for takeoff; boost pump on; transponder on—OK, let’s roll."
The Extra’s 300-horsepower powerplant responded with gusto. In moments, the tail was up; seconds later the aircraft passed 75 knots and, with slight encouragement, rotated to about 20 degrees nose up for my standard 110-kt climbout. At that point I heard the loudest noise that I’d ever heard in an airplane—the canopy had flung itself open, shattering itself on the right wing. The 100-plus kt of airspeed and propwash ripped off my baseball hat and headset.
My first thought was, "What in the world happened?" followed by my next thought, "You must have not fully secured the canopy, you idiot." I immediately reduced power and lowered the nose. As I looked down the runway from about 75 feet, I decided to land. I descended quickly to the runway and started to flare. As the nose rose in the flare, I got my first glimpse at the panel and a cursory look at the airspeed indicator, which was now at about 110 kt. I said to myself, "Whoa, way too fast, slow it down." I held off for another few seconds and looked out the side of the airplane. "Oh no," my mind raced. "I’m too far down the runway and too fast. I’ve got to go around." Full power, stick back. My tailwheel hit the ground with tremendous force as the Extra took off again, this time at about a 45-degree nose-up pitch. There was too much wind and buffeting at this power setting, so I reduced power and pushed the nose over again. Another glance at the airspeed indicator showed 75 kt. A cool internal voice said loud and clear, "Watch your airspeed, fly the airplane!" I paid attention to the voice and spent the next few moments gaffing the airspeed back to 85 kt.
Now my brain finally started to do some assessment. What to do? Fly, ditch, climb, bail out? A little fore and aft pressure on the stick let me know that I had vertical control. I rolled left and then right and applied a little rudder, and the Extra handled well. I looked to the right for traffic and rolled onto a right crosswind leg. I could see the rim of the canopy lying against the wing, and I had some significant concern that if I got much faster it would come off completely—the last thing that I wanted in a control surface was what remained of my canopy.
How am I going to let the tower know I’ve got to land? I knew that they’d cleared me to 1,500 feet and 200 degrees, so I also knew anything I did that was a radical departure from the clearance would get their attention. I turned to downwind at about 350 feet agl and, aiming straight at the tower, slowly rocked my wings. By this time the tower had figured out that I had a problem and was taking care of traffic. I couldn’t hear them, but I found out later that they had cleared me to land on any runway. In any event, I wasn’t waiting for light signals. As I started to turn a rather shallow base leg, I was intently looking for traffic on final. A Cessna 150 was on a short final for the right parallel, and I timed my base leg turn to pass behind it. As I turned to final for the same runway from which I had departed, I was pretty sure that I’d make it to the ground intact. As I touched down, I thought, "Wow, is this thing ever loud; I guess I’ve never heard it from the outside without a headset on." In actuality, my tailwheel had broken off, either on what was a very hard landing or when it hit on the go-around. I was hearing the tail dragging on a piece of broken fiberglass and a dangling wheel.
Once I had pulled off the runway, an inspection of the cockpit revealed that my headset was still plugged in and was now dangling outside and behind me. I pulled it on and told the tower I was OK and would be shutting down where I was.
I learned a great deal from my experience. Checklists are made to be checked, not hidden from view and repeated from memory. Why I didn’t pull the handle back into the fully secured position as I said to myself, "Canopy down and locked," I’ll never know. All I can think is that I just reached over and grabbed the handle and then proceeded to the next task.
Fortunately my training and experience had been up to the challenge. Aside from a bruised ego and some moderate damage to the aircraft, I was pretty lucky in the overall scheme of things—especially considering the other alternatives.
Larry Barels, AOPA 707229, a consultant from Santa Barbara, California, is a private pilot with multiengine and instrument ratings.
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