I’m using the Wilhelmson canopy latch, but it scares me.

Here it is, installed and working with the ‘remote’ modification.

When the canopy is closed it becomes very tight and locks in a solid fashion. I still can imagine in turbulence I might knock it and then bad things could happen.

I needed a solution that would provide a secondary lock. It needed to be something that could only be latched from the inside by the pilot. It had to be something that could not be actuated accidentally from the outside and lock me out of the plane. This is kinda important.

In the end I found a simple or I’d like to say, elegant solution. I can’t say that of course,  this is for others to comment on.

It turned out to be a locking pin from a boat shop. I had an ‘EZ fitting’ for a bolt or screw. I drilled out the thread and cut two slots for the locking ball bearings as you see above.

The next problem was if I just put the fitting into the fuselage wall it was deep enough to perforate the fuel tanks in the strakes. Here is my solution. Just a piece of foam to offset the locking pin from the side wall.

Of course I needed to get excited and epoxy it in place and then add glass and epoxy to bond it to the wall.

With the pin removed normal rotation is required to actuate the lock and open the canopy, the arm has to rotate freely.

With the pin in place the arm can not rotate and the canopy will stay locked. I’m thinking a bit of string is all I need now so the pin doesn’t get lost. Definitely old school here.

With the pin out the handle can move full range. I’m happy with this ‘pilot in place only’ canopy lock as a secondary safeguard. The canopy opening in flight is mitigated by the plans safety catch canopy lock as well. My solution is to address my own lack of comfort in the very clever Wilhelmson lock solution.