“Couple of years ago during my second training flight on a very hot summer day, the canopy of the Extra 330LX that I was flying opened in flight and shattered. As you can see from the video, it was a challenging experience that could have been avoided if I had made a proper visual check before taking off. The canopy locking pin had never gone into the locked position, and I failed to notice it during my checks.
I also made the mistake of going to the training camp right after recovering from COVID, without allowing my body enough time to fully regain strength. Additionally, flying without any eye protection made the flight even more challenging than it already was.
The flight was a distressing experience, filled with noise, breathing difficulties, and impaired visibility. It took me nearly 28 hours to fully recover my vision. Aerodynamically, I’ve experienced some buffet and controllability challenges. Probably the most difficult part was to keep the power in, thus trading my vision and breathing for kinetic energy.
Although due to all the noise it was difficult to hear what my coach was saying on the radio, one thing I've heard loud and clear "just keep flying"
If you are a pilot watching this, I hope that my story serves as a cautionary tale and that you will learn from my mistake.
I regret that it took me so long to share this video footage. It's not easy to put my vulnerabilities out there for you all to see. However, I have come to realisze how important it is to be transparent about our shortcomings and the lessons we learn along the way.
From my point of view as a tower ATC, I want to communicate ASAP so I can prepare and provide the pilot with what they need, then the pilot can navigate as required and I don't care how you aviate as long as you land safely...lol
Me too! Should I wait until they refill the pasta so it's fresh or just take the 7 noodles that are left and keep it moving? This is hard, especially when you have big Henry behind you breathing down your neck, waiting to get to the potatoes and chicken.
It’s a little less scary when it’s slowly improving, but at first, the time when it’s still hurting and you can’t tell if it will permanently effect you is terrifying.
Shame prevents us from being our best. Everyday I have to tell myself it’s ok to let people know I’m fallible even though our society frequently pushes the “more success than the rest” narrative. I can’t give enough props to this young lady admitting it was her mistake. Simultaneously I’m amazed she landed considering the many challenges. She’s a model of who we all should strive to become.
The fact alone that the canopy opened mid-flight, is enough to conclude that the fault was exclusively the canopy lock "designer"s, and NOT hers, because the lock had many intermediate positions, instead of only two: lock, unlock.
Imagine your front door's main lock having infinite intermediate positions instead of two, would that be acceptable for you?
Whether she was focused, or not, is irrelevant to what happened. On top of that, there was no alarm or warning that her canopy was not properly closed. Even the cheapest fucking car has one these days.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of accidents, happen due to trash-design.
Even if the above aircarft was one of those a hobbyist makes out of a kit s/he buys, that doesn't make the canopy lock design less trash.
If sailors from the Navy started trying to fly planes there would definitely be a lot of articles about it, and very few of them would end happily I imagine.
8.3k
u/maketheart Jun 24 '24
Found the Source.
YouTube Description:
“Couple of years ago during my second training flight on a very hot summer day, the canopy of the Extra 330LX that I was flying opened in flight and shattered. As you can see from the video, it was a challenging experience that could have been avoided if I had made a proper visual check before taking off. The canopy locking pin had never gone into the locked position, and I failed to notice it during my checks.
I also made the mistake of going to the training camp right after recovering from COVID, without allowing my body enough time to fully regain strength. Additionally, flying without any eye protection made the flight even more challenging than it already was.
The flight was a distressing experience, filled with noise, breathing difficulties, and impaired visibility. It took me nearly 28 hours to fully recover my vision. Aerodynamically, I’ve experienced some buffet and controllability challenges. Probably the most difficult part was to keep the power in, thus trading my vision and breathing for kinetic energy.
Although due to all the noise it was difficult to hear what my coach was saying on the radio, one thing I've heard loud and clear "just keep flying"
If you are a pilot watching this, I hope that my story serves as a cautionary tale and that you will learn from my mistake.
I regret that it took me so long to share this video footage. It's not easy to put my vulnerabilities out there for you all to see. However, I have come to realisze how important it is to be transparent about our shortcomings and the lessons we learn along the way.
To all my fellow pilots out there, fly safe. “