Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50; Flight Crew Total 1150; Flight Crew Type 90
Distraction; Human-Machine Interface
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport
Human Factors; Aircraft
The FB-1A is an amateur built experimental airplane; which by original design; is an open-cockpit airplane. This particular airplane has a canopy which fully encloses the cockpit. The canopy rotates 90 degrees towards the right wing to open. It is secured by two front latches which must be manually engaged and a rear latch which automatically engages. Shortly after takeoff the canopy; at roughly 150 feet AGL; departed the airplane. The front of the canopy lifted up; it rotated 90 degrees to the right; and the wind then ripped it off the hinge. It left the airplane cleanly and did no damage. Since the airplane is by design open-cockpit the airplane still handled properly. I advised the inbound jump plane that my canopy had departed the airplane and there is on Runway XX. The wind was gusting to roughly 25 knots straight down the runway which made Runway XX the only viable runway. The jump plane advised me they had limited fuel and could not wait long to land. I asked the Skydive plane if they could delay their landing by roughly 5 minutes and they could. I was able to identify the canopy's location on the runway and told the Skydive plane that I would land and clear the debris which I did. The Skydive plane then landed without incident.The canopy departed the airplane because I failed to latch the front latches of the canopy. Verifying that the canopy is properly secured is on the Pre-Takeoff Checklist which I did perform but missed the item. Maintenance was recently performed on the brakes so I put an extra focus on verifying they were working properly (which they were). I ran the pre-takeoff checklist and when I set the power to 1;000 RPM I thought the throttle felt a little different. I then spent a few minutes checking the throttle and the engine at various power settings to ensure there was not a problem with the throttle. While I was testing the throttle the local jump plane announced that jumpers were away at 11;000 feet over the airport. The distraction of the extra focus on the throttle and the sudden added task of looking for the skydivers in the sky caused me to forget that I had not completed the entire checklist and the last item (verifying the seatbelts and canopy) had not been performed. The canopy departing the airplane was caused by my inaction to properly run and verify the Pre-Takeoff Checklist. I will put a stronger focus on the checklist and will be designing a new canopy that will be less prone to human error.
Experimental aircraft pilot reports forgetting to latch his canopy prior to takeoff; then losing it shortly after becoming airborne. The canopy lands on the runway and must be retrieved so that a skydive plane can land.