On Aug 15, 5:24*pm, More_Flaps wrote:
On Aug 16, 11:21*am, buttman wrote:



On Aug 15, 4:40*pm, Superdoof wrote:

I've had a door open a few times during flight too, on a Cessna 152.
My instructor showed me how to close it in-flight.

You slow down to nearly stall speed, which means you can open the door
just wide enough to slam it well enough to close. Although it would be
safe to leave open.

What? You don't even need to do that. I have about 800 hours in a
C152, which means I've about 800 instances of the door popping open.

First you open the window, then you grab the door by the window frame,
push out hard against the relative wind, then slam it close. You don't
even need to slow down, unless you are a wimp or something.

You need to either get the door catch fixed or do your pre take off
checks properly.

Cheers

I was exagerating on the amount of instances the door has popped open.
More like 50 or 100 instances.

The C152 door latch was very poorly designed. Its not like Piper/
Beechcraft latches or even a 172 latch. There is no locking mechanism.
The way they work is theres a little bolt thing that sticks out from
the door that gets wedged between these gears in the door frame. As
those planes age the latch gets weaker and weaker to where you have to
slam them every time, and even then, it'll still pop open.