Volume III, Issue 5
November, 1998

Back in May of 1997 Jim Kellett and I got our two Cirruses together for a little flying in Spartanburg. Jim and I had talked about getting a bunch of Cirrus owners together for a fly-in, unfortunately he and I were the only ones that showed up. The day we flew turned out to be extremely windy, but very soarable as I was up about 2.8 hours, encountering a little bit of wave. Earlier in the day Jim and I had rigged our birds, taken pictures, etc., remarking on the slight difference of my nose profile and canopy. That led into a general discussion of canopies, their expense, etc. Little was I to know how prophetic that discussion would be, and how soon I was to learn about canopies!

After landing we derigged, and I had my wings off and back in the trailer. My fuselage was in its dolly, with the nose and forward section of the canopy just inside the trailer. Jim and I were standing there talking, when a gust of wind came up and caught the rudder, rotating the fuselage in the saddle, and cracking the front-right side of the forward canopy. You can't imagine the shock on our faces on seeing this, especially after having discussed canopies that morning. Jim had to hit the road back to Virginia, so he made his apologies and left. I managed to get the Cirrus back in my Tee hangar, than headed home for a couple of stiff drinks and to ponder my stupidity!

When I mentioned earlier the damage done in 1980 along with the reconfigured nose, that was all info that I had discovered after my canopy accident. I would soon find out what a headache it was going to be trying to come up with a custom canopy! After talking to my insurance adjuster I was referred to Paul Gaines of Gaines Composites in Atlanta, Ga. Paul was known as doing a lot of good fiberglass work, and he had also worked some with Ray Poquette in California(ThermoTec). It was Paul's suggestion to bring my Cirrus to Atlanta where he would make a cardboard template of the canopy. This was done, and was sent out to Ray Poquette so Ray could determine if he had a mold that would work, otherwise he would have to make a special mold to accommodate this canopy. During this process Ray contacted me and requested a few measurements off my old canopy, some of which would help him locate the correct placement of the vent window. These dimensions were furnished, and not long after Ray notified me that the canopy was done and on the way to Paul in Atlanta. Next thing I know Paul calls me to say he received the canopy from Ray, however something is amiss as the canopy is not going to fit! Turns out that one of the measurements I gave Ray was misread, which threw off the canopy fit. At this point Paul suggested we might be better off modifying the Cirrus back to its original shape so we could go with a standard canopy that would fit an Open Cirrus. This seemed like the best course to take, so we sent the canopy back to Ray and he replaced it with a tinted, factory canopy. When Paul received the replacement he reworked the nose to accept the new canopy. In spite of the canopy mixup the wait was certainly worth it. The tinted canopy looks great, and it sure is nice having my Cirrus back in its original condition! I need to mention here that at one point in this canopy ordeal it looked like the only way to get a standard Open Cirrus canopy was going to be through Schempp-Hirth, so to make a long story short I also ended up with a canopy from Schempp-Hirth.

Soooo, any of you Cirrus owners out there that may be in need of a new canopy, I'm your man! Incidentally, men, canopies ain't cheap! The canopy from Schempp-Hirth set me back $2700, which was comparable to the one from Poquette(however Ray's was tinted). In addition you have labor for installation which will rival the cost of the canopy! The moral to the story is be damn careful when rigging/derigging in windy conditions, and take great pains to never, ever crack or damage your canopy!

- Steve Cameron , Cirrus No. 37

(864) 585-2468, e-mail <scamcot@bellsouth.net>

Let me tell you a horror story which happened to me in 1984. Twice that summer the bolt broke in the left wing rod. The first time it happened I noticed it broken as I was getting the wings on - I can’t remember the particulars, being 15 years ago, but I sure remember the second time it broke. The first break was repaired by a B engineer and the rod reinstalled. A few months later I was sitting in my glider on the flight line waiting for the cable to come back from the winch - there was some delay in the wire retrieve and as we all usually do when we have nothing else to do when impatient or waiting for the hook up we start out checks again. I pulled the dive brake handle, it didn’t feel right, I looked over at the left wing and saw the dive brake still closed, and the right dive brake open. The bolt had broken again. How close I came to killing myself that day! So this was very serious business. Another open Cirrus (No. 77) had arrived at our club that year so I took a look at the bolt in it - sure enough, it looked larger than the ones in mine. I took a measurement and determined it was an 8 mm bolt, not 6 mm which was in mine. I obtained two 5/16"x24 aircraft bolts, pulled both rods and had the engineer weld them on - and they have been there ever since. I immediately wrote Schempp-Hirth to ask them what was going on and told them my fix. They wrote back on December 13, 1984 congratulating me: "We are grateful that you could help yourself by exchanging the critical bolt". They went on to say that they had seen the problem and had modified the part early during the production; there were only a few with the 6 mm bold and "we don’t know who the owners are". Anyway, 4 or 5 months later they issue Tech Note 265-8 and sent me a copy with a drawing of the necessary fix.

For anyone doing this fix they’d better be careful in pulling the rods. If you don’t attach a string to the end of the rod and build a bullet shaped device to screw into the rod before pulling it you will have one heck of a job in getting the rods back in.

- - Tom Foote, Cirrus No. 18.
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

Editor’s Note: See the last newsletter. This relates to a US AD for Cirruses with SN less than 50, and Schempp-Hirth Tech Note 265-8