Brief Description: Canopy Lock System Engineered - Part 1
The stock RV-8 canopy installation has a nice latch system that can be operated from both the inside and outside and pulls that canopy closed tightly. The problem is, however, that there's no facility for locking the canopy. Yeah, you read that right - no way to lock the canopy closed! With avionics totally the price of a luxury sports car, not being able to lock the canopy just wasn't going to do...
I've been thinking about how to engineer a lock system for a couple of weeks now and keep shooting my ideas down for one reason or another. It started to become more obvious why Van's didn't bother with a lock for the RV-8 - it's kind of hard.
I bought a couple of drawer locks at the hardware store and even drilled a hole in the canopy skirt, then realized that I couldn't get the canopy open anymore because the lock barrel caught on the rear bulkhead!!! Rats.
So back to the hardware store to find something a little slimmer. I found a snazzy cabinet and draw lock by "Security" part number U-9947 at Home Depot for about $5. It installs from the back which makes its lock barrel stick out instead of in which suited my needs perfectly.
I spent the day fabricating a mounting system that ties nicely into the canopy frame with two screws and also rivets to the skirt. The lock tongue slides up and down, so I had to cut a perfectly rectangular hole in the slider rail and cockpit rail. It took about two hours to get the two rectangular holes cut perfectly so that the lock tongue slide in and out with no slop whatsoever!
The position of the lock is such that it holds the canopy very firmly in place even when you unlatch the regular latch and try to pull the canopy back. The canopy has to slide back about 2-3" before the rear slider will allow the canopy to pop up so a catch on the lock isn't needed.
Its a really elegant system that works perfectly! Yahoo!
