My experience with canopy taxi latches
Max,
I am on my third iteration of canopy in taxi open position. The first was stock, hand held. It does not work for obvious reasons. I taxied out from between the hangers got hit by a gust of wind just as I took my hand off the canopy rail to close the throttle. The canopy flipped open, broke the stock restraining cable, and bent the right skirt up a little. Not a good day.
Second iteration I installed a hinge on the forward canopy rail with a piece of 0.063 with a hole in the end for recieving the locking tube from the front of the canopy. It worked OK, but was kind of in the way when working in the cockpit. I finally broke it off about a month ago while putting inspection plates back in the bottom of the cockpit after annual.
I have just installed what I believe to be my final system. Instead of having the rods go through the square tubing, I installed some 0.063 doublers inside that allow the lock tubes to ride just inside the canopy frame. This gives you extra height at the front and back to drill an extra locking hole that will keep the canopy open about 2 inches.
There are probably other elegent ways to do this, but I try to keep it simple and light.
I hope this helps.