Loss Of Canopy
I'm not sure how many pilots have survived a complete canopy loss in an RV4, but it happened to me....and since you asked, here is my experience:
Back in 2002, on February 3rd, a day which I will never forget, I was goofing around and showing off the performance of my RV4 to a bunch of former hang gliding buddies waiting to launch off a hill at Lake McClure, in the foothills of the California Sierra Nevada mountains.
I snuck up on the launch site from behind at about 1000 ft above the mountain, stalled the plane and dove towards the landing area, way surpassing the recommended VNE of the plane (around 230 mph when I last checked). I then pulled as hard as I could for a near vertical climb and as close to the ground as possible....stupid, ignorant and inexperienced as I was.
The pull registered 7 G's on my G meter, and nearly caused me to black out. The one thing I'll never forget in my blue skyward daze, was an instant "puff" of air hitting me in my face...a mili-second before the massive explosion of the canopy loss...
Getting hit in the face with a sudden blast of 200 mph plus air is no joke. It felt like a brick hit me square in the forehead. I was instantly blinded from the furocious blast of wind. I lost my glasses, hat and headphones as the canopy ripped off the right side of the plane (as it was designed, thank God) tearing a gash in the right skin of the rudder.
The best I could do, realizing the shock, was to try to regain my breath, composure and then level the plane on the horizon. The gages were impossible to see. Once I realized that I wasn't dead, I simply tried to head the plane into the west...and back to my airport 25 minutes away in the freezing cold air.
Fortunately, I had some visibility in one eye. I slowed the plane as best as I could, but I still had no forward visibility and had to navigate following a river looking off the side of the plane. Good fortune has it, I made it back to an extended final to my airport field at Turlock. I could see forward only when I put the plane in a full-rudder right slip, with one visible eye....
I (fortunatly) managed to land the plane on the first try. I was so stunned and relieved to be on the ground, that I shut the plane down on the runway without taxiing back to my hangar. I sustained two black eyes from the wind blast and my face was swollen for a week....
I know this experience will probably spurr a bunch of comments like "what an idiot"... Point is, I learned my lesson and went on to fly 700 hours on that first RV4. I then bought a Christen Eagle, learned some aerobatics, a V-Tail Bonanza which I lost an engine on a 2010 California trip, just 10 miles from my destination of Oshkosh.
I've since owned an RV6 and now another 4, my favorite airplane.....but I never do anything stupid like exceeding the Vne with that 7 G pull out.
I consider myself lucky, and smart enough to have bought a great plane that will suit me for quite some time. But I'm always leary of loosing the canopy, and I've installed a canopy latch. Wearing a helmet is something that after refreshing my memory of this incident, is something that I would now consider...good for bird strikes too.