I just had all of the windows changed on my PA28 as part of the re-spray. It wasn’t cheap so I wouldn’t kick one out!
If my mobile wasn’t working I’d probably switch on the master and call ATC so they could send over the fire crew but if not, based on the cost of the windows, I think I’d sleep inside and wait for somebody to turn up.
Remind me never to let you in my aircraft…
In a club/school/rental aircraft I would just kick my way out through the windows. When you’re locked in it’s very much your problem, but afterwards it’s their problem.
I had that too, in 2000 or 2001. Could not open the door on a PA28-181, from the inside. It has two locks and one of them jammed. We got out eventually. I kicked up a big stink with the school. They said an engineer looked at it but could not find a problem. Later I found out that no engineer ever did look at it. It may have been a marginal thing, to do with thermal expansion of the door or some such (TB20s can get that too).
Once at the airport hangar area, a pilot taxying around in a PA-28 waved frantically at me because he could not open the door from the inside and he did not have his phone with him. Apparently the mechanism was broken. I could open the door from the outside normally.
I thought then that I should find out about opening the bagage door on a Piper from the inside but never did.
Ultranomad wrote:
A few years ago I went both into and out of my Grumman Tiger through the baggage door
In the Aztec, more than once, I was locked out of the main door because I didn’t have the keys with me.
The answer there is even more complicated. Luckily the rear baggage door lock was so worn that it could be opened with a Swiss Army Knife (fish descaler, I think it’s called), then into the rear baggage hold, which is quite big, and unscrew the rear seat back (two screws), push the back forward, slither over it and then the main door would, unlike the PA46 apparently, open from the inside, though the door lock remained in the locked position.
On the C185 seaplane around here, the key lock is not working on the door, but it works on the bagage door.
That means that you start by unlocking the baggage door, then get yourself inthe baggage compartment without falling in the water (a bit tricky since you get there from standing on the float) and unlock the doors from there ! At least, this way I know from experience that I can go trhough the bagage door of a C185 :-)
Ibra wrote:
Getting out from the inside via a locked bags door is tricky, any other aircrafts than M20J have emergency releases for their bag doors?
On a Tiger it’s designated as an emergency exit and has a simple unlatching trigger.
Ibra wrote:
Nice one, hopefully you did not taxi/takeoff in that IMC configuration
Now that’s what I’d call „flying under the hood“ :)
Ultranomad wrote:
A few years ago I went both into and out of my Grumman Tiger through the baggage door because it was the only way to get in/out with the canopy cover in place
Nice one, hopefully you did not taxi/takeoff in that IMC configuration 
Getting out from the inside via a locked bags door is tricky, any other aircrafts than M20J have emergency releases for their bag doors?
