Wind Screen Mod ala joe eagleman

[CHARLES DEBOER]

Looking through the old web site I spotted Joe's wind screen mod for the LEU.  Has anyone used it on the XL?  On our plans for the XL it notes that no metal should contact the plexiglass.  Joe uses lexan.  Does plexi crack easer than lexan?  What is the better choice?  Does anyone consider Joe's mod better or worse?

[Murray Randall]

I believe that Makron, Plexiglass, Lexan are all polycarbonate but are different trade names. They are polycarbonate  I believe, as opposed to acrylic sold as Lucite and other trade names.  The polycarbonate materials are easy to drill, bend easily, heat form and do fine if gasoline is spilled.  I'd say use any polycabonate, stay away from acrylics, drill, sure screw to metal, have a bit of hole clearance and don't tighen excessively, heat form it carefully with your heat gun.    Murray

[Tom H]

Actually, Plexiglas is acrylic.  Another polycarbonate is Tuffak; don't know if still made.  I agree with Murray, use polycarbonate.  Much tougher, can be cold bent similar to sheet metal, but will crack if subjected to a lot of repeated stress.

[Murray Randall]

Here's a pic of a polycarbonate bird house I made heat bending and also tapping for 10-32 screws.  No we never did put in up outside for birds.     Sorry to skipping off the topic here but call it a sparrow house on an Eagle site

[Sam Buchanan]

If shopping for windshields in the aviation aisles of the big box stores, look for the 'shatter-proof' plastic sheets. The stuff I found was polycarbonate even though it wasn't Lexan brand. The regular sheets are acrylic and can't be cold-formed.

[CHARLES DEBOER]

Does Joe's mod provide a better wind screen?

[CHARLES DEBOER]

Anyone out there using Joe Eagleman's wind screen mod?

[Tom H]

Charles, I guess we failed to address your question.  I saw Joe's LEU at Osh a few years ago with the radical, swept back, extended windscreen.  He said it worked well, and he flew from Missouri, I believe.

We used a simple, short curved windscreen on our LEU, Treehugger, instead of the larger screen from the plans that fit around the upright tubing from Station 1.  It seemed to work well in keeping direct wind off the pilot's face, but the pilot still got plenty of fresh air.

Treehugger is shown on the rotating display on this forum's home page, and you can see the windscreen in that photo.

Hope this helps some.

[CHARLES DEBOER]

Thanks Tom,  I'll take a look.  What kind of hardware did you use to attach the deck under the wind screen?

[Tom H]

On LEU Treehugger, the deck under the windscreen is alum sheet, attached with machine screws to tabs welded to the side fuselage tubing.  I believe we used rivnuts squeezed in holes in the tabs for the screws to connect to.  The instrument panel was made of "too thick" alum sheet (too heavy), and the deck also attaches to it.

Which brings up a reminder - keep everything light, minimal, just barely essential, especially on the LEU and probably the XL, too.  We had a builders group, with a bunch of "good ideas", which probably added unneeded weight.  Our windscreen was lighter than plans, but other stuff threw that gain away.