Closing the door on a Cirrus in flight

Cirri are somewhat notorious for not having one of their two door
latches pop open in flight (usually because they weren't properly
latched on the ground). I have often wondered if it might be possible
to correct the problem in flight by popping the other latch, opening the
door, and slamming it shut. But I've always been leery of actually
trying it and finding out.

Well, today I was presented with the opportunity of doing this
experiment when I actually forgot to close the pilot-side door before
taking off. (Don't ask.) I am somewhat disappointed to report that,
no, there is absolutely no way to close the door of a Cirrus while
flying. You have to land.

Just in case anyone else was wondering.

rg

P.S. I can also report that the Bose Headset X is really quite superb
at canceling out the sound of air rushing in through an open door on a
Cirrus. I was at nearly 1000 AGL wondering why my climb performance
sucked so badly before I figured out what was going on.

Ron Garret wrote:

I was at nearly 1000 AGL wondering why my climb performance
sucked so badly before I figured out what was going on.

The slightly ajar door affected the climb performance that much?

--
Peter

Probably couldn't think straight with all the wind noise and
blowing dust in the cockpit.

In general, a door popping open is not an emergency,
airplanes will fly just fine with a door in trail if it has
come completely open. Best action, is to come back around
and land and properly close the door. Trying to close the
door in-flight can bend the door making it harder to proper
close and seal later. Some POHs do have a procedure listed,
but why mess with the airplane control when a landing is
simple and just a few minutes time.

When I have a student pilot, I will pop a door during
take-off, a few seconds before rotation . If the student
aborts or continues take-off and comes around for a landing,
without any PANIC, they are ready to solo. If they say
something like, "Did you do that or did I forget to close
the door?" they are really ready. If they get all excited,
grab for the door or do something silly, they need more dual
and ground instruction.


--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

--
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"Peter R." wrote in message
...
| Ron Garret wrote:
|
| I was at nearly 1000 AGL wondering why my climb
performance
| sucked so badly before I figured out what was going on.
|
| The slightly ajar door affected the climb performance that
much?
|
| --
| Peter

In article ,
"Peter R." wrote:

Ron Garret wrote:

I was at nearly 1000 AGL wondering why my climb performance
sucked so badly before I figured out what was going on.

The slightly ajar door affected the climb performance that much?

Yes, I was really surprised. I actually first noticed it just after
rotating. Usually there's about a three second lag between rotating and
liftoff, and then the plane always climbs very smartly. This time it
was 4-5 seconds, and the plane lifted off a few inches and then actually
settled back onto the runway for an instant before finally taking off.
I thought it was the high altitude (despite the fact that I've flown out
of high altitude airports before and never had that happen). I even
remarked on it at the time, saying, "Hm, that was interesting." My wife
noticed it too because she knew exactly what I was talking about.

I've had single latches pop open on me before, but this was the first
time that I forgot to close the door entirely. I think it happened
because this was the coldest weather I've ever flown in. Invariably, at
my homebase VNY if you let the door swing all the way closed it gets
uncomfortably hot in the cabin, and so I'm always holding the door ajar
until the last possible moment (and no, I don't mean just before
rotation!) But at Truckee it was 40 degrees or so and the sun was
behind the mountains, so it was comfortable without holding the door
open. There were a bunch of other things that were different from my
usual routine (first time operating out of an untowered airport with
intersecting runways in use, most flight hours logged in the Cirrus in
one day). And finally, I really think the new Bose headsets contributed
too. I've had door latches pop before, and with my old Peltors I could
hear a whistling sound begin even before rotating. With the Bose we
were doing 120 knots with the door completely open and I couldn't hear
it at all. (This is not to say that the Bose blocks out all noise -- it
doesn't, it just seems to do a particularly good job in that frequency
band.)

rg

Jim Macklin wrote:

In general, a door popping open is not an emergency,
airplanes will fly just fine with a door in trail if it has
come completely open.
snip

In the Bonanza I fly, I have experienced the door popping open, the luggage
door popping open, and a passenger window popping open. The first two were
so uneventful that it wasn't until I commented on the background noise when
my co-pilot seated passenger talked on the intercom did it finally dawn on
me that the doors were not properly sealed. However, the window coming
open was more startling.

Last August, I had two of my three boys in the airplane, with my five year
old sitting in the back right seat. The weather was 1,500 overcast in 5
miles vis and I was flying IFR up to Lake Placid, NY. Within a few
seconds of leaving the runway at takeoff, there was a sudden and startling
"Boom!"

Upon clearing my head of the shock of that initial noise, I then caught
that telltale sound of outside wind noise. A quick look back over my right
should confirmed that the rear passenger window, the window next to my
seated five year-old that tilts out from the top, was open and fully
extended.

I immediately went back to flying the airplane and realized that we were
going to be entering the cloud deck. I called ATC and requested a level
off at 1,200 feet followed by a vector to the north (out of the departure
corridor), explaining that the window had just popped open. I also added
that if I were unsuccessful I would need to be vectored back around for a
landing.

The controller quickly approved my request, so I leveled and turned, slowed
the aircraft about thirty knots so as not to get too far away from the
airport in deteriorating visability, waited until the airspeed had
stabilized, then engaged the AP.

I continued to watch the airspeed and altimeter until I was happy that the
AP had the aircraft, then unbuckled and reached way over to the right to
grab the handle of the window. Not knowing how much it would need, I
pulled very hard and, amazingly to me, the windows quickly slammed closed
with very little resistance.

Back in my seat, I re-buckled my seatbelt and called ATC to report that I
was successful. They turned me back on course and cleared me to my
previously assigned altitude.

Incidentally, it was not my son who had played with the window that caused
it to pop (he is not the type), but rather a mechanic who had worked on my
aircraft the previous day and had opened the window for cooling, but failed
to slam it closed for the lock to catch. I then concluded that this was a
previously undetected weak point in my preflight checklist.


--
Peter

"Peter R." wrote in message ...
....snip...
Incidentally, it was not my son who had played with the window that caused
it to pop (he is not the type), but rather a mechanic who had worked on my
aircraft the previous day and had opened the window for cooling, but failed
to slam it closed for the lock to catch. I then concluded that this was a
previously undetected weak point in my preflight checklist.


--
Peter

Nice fairly uneventful way to find a new checklist item!

"Peter R." wrote in message
...

....
In the Bonanza I fly, I have experienced the door popping open, the
luggage
door popping open, and a passenger window popping open. The first two
were
so uneventful that it wasn't until I commented on the background noise
when
my co-pilot seated passenger talked on the intercom did it finally dawn on
me that the doors were not properly sealed.

Yea, but what about the trail of socks, pants, shirts and underware that you
left all the way from Chicago to St. Louis when the luggage door opened?

:-)

--
Geoff
the sea hawk at wow way d0t com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
Spell checking is left as an excercise for the reader.

The slightly ajar door affected the climb performance that much?

Everyone should try flying with the door open, and controlling the
aircraft with the door. It takes some practice, it works, and it might
just save your life one day.

Tony

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE

"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk at wow way d0t com wrote

Yea, but what about the trail of socks, pants, shirts and underware that
you left all the way from Chicago to St. Louis when the luggage door
opened?

At OSH this year, while working point on 36, I found a Chicago sectional,
folded to the OSH area. I wonder if someone left a door open during
departure, and got that sucked out in the process.

Even then, it was only a 2001 sectional. Good to be up to date, huh? g
--
Jim in NC

"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk at wow way d0t com wrote:

Yea, but what about the trail of socks, pants, shirts and underware that you
left all the way from Chicago to St. Louis when the luggage door opened?

They were, no doubt, forcibly ejected between that little crack when my
aircraft explosively decompressed (never mind it is not a pressurized
aircraft).

--
Peter