Open Door

Rodney Brim

Here's Rodney's account.

I had a near fatal encounter with the door opening and not coming off. I sent in some suggestions to the factory, which should be part of all your emergency procedures. I have since rehinged my doors from the front, and the open quite nicely in flight without creating any problems - although I can't close them once they are open until I'm back on the ground.

Bottom Line: If the door pops all the way open and doesn't tear off, (which mine didn't, in my case it was the co-pilot door and it swung all the way up and I couldn't reach it) you will be in an emergency.

1. The aircraft will be moderately directionally unstable - you now have a dorsal fin of sorts in the middle of the aircraft and the plane wants to wander around that center - its still quite flyable.

2. The curved door is a spin waiting to happen. As soon as you turn away from the door, the plane will begin an involuntary roll away from the door, and drag will increase quickly. You will be in what would be a stall-spin configuration in a conventional plane. Speed will be dropping like a rock, as will the plane, and you're best efforts to stop the spin and return to straight and level will result in a bank exceeding 60 degrees. In my case I was departing the airport at 200 feet agl. At this altitude, once you initiate a roll, you will have less than 5 seconds to get it right or meet your Maker.

3. Don't turn away from an open door in a Velocity. Turn into it, you'll pin it against the fuselage and stabilize it against the air frame. You'll have tremendous drag, but its flyable. I have 325 hp and I could maintain altitude at full power.

4. With all the drag, the plane is going to feel like the gear is hanging out. In all the noise and confusion, charts flying around, you won't be able to hear through your headset - remember that the gear isn't down (I didn't) but don't drop it until you've made the field, because it obviously will create even more drag.

Hope that helps,

Rodney Brim

Al Gietzen

Here's Al's write-up of his "door open in flight" incident.

Of course I was very disappointed not to make the fly-in, and other stops planned on the trip. But I don’t want anyone to be alarmed – I’m fine, and I flew the plane back home today with an improvised door.

We were about an hour out, cruising happily along at 9500’ and 170 KTAS, when suddenly there was a noise and lots of wind blowing and the pilot side door was gone. I have no idea why it came unlatched – I had a double detent spring which had always kept it solidly in the latched position.

It took only a few moments to determine that the plane was controllable (meaning the door had departed), and that there was no prop vibration meaning there was no prop damage. With a few moments to adapt to the new aerodynamics; it was a matter of flying to the nearest airport about 10 miles away. Only when we got there, we found it was a small strip (looked like dirt, although I found later it was paved) in the middle of the desert with no structures of any kind anywhere in sight. Since the plane was flying stably, I decided to head off to another about 20 miles away; and made a normal landing.

Upon landing we noted that the rear window on the passenger side had a large hole in it. Apparently as the door ripped off it was swung over the top, and the strake extension slammed into the window; and from there the door bounced clear of prop. The front hinge mounting pad was torn out; the rear hinge separated at the pin. The prop had a couple of minor marks on it apparently made by pieces of the plexiglass from the window.

The plane was about 150 miles from home; and it is now safely back in it’s hangar. All in all, the damage is not too bad; just a lot of work to do to replace the door with my custom strake extensions, etc.

Al

Mark Riley

Mark reported taht the buyer of his first plane had an incident as well.

The buyer of my SERG forgot to latch the copilot side door prior to takeoff from Santa Barbara at night. The door departed the aircraft mid takeoff and destroyed the prop, necessitating a forced landing and heavy damage. I would strongly recommend against opening a door on an Elite in flight.