Flying at Home

Monday I got in five flights with helicopters out in front of the shop.  I decided that I was going to do more helicopter flying this year and if the weather permits I will be flying every day.

Today I got in four and a half flights, it started raining during the last one and I had to land.  I hope I wasn't as close to the tree as this looks!

Also on Monday I started vacuum forming windows for the Skylane.  The plans called for gluing a sheet of plastic over the window area, filling around the edges to smooth it out and then masking off the windows and painting.  I didn't want to have the bump on the side of the fuselage so I made up a mold of the rear windows and it worked out fine.  The picture is of the base with the mold for the front windows on it that I did today.  The perfboard is covered with metal screen and sealed around the edges with tape and silicone rubber.

This is the lid with plastic mounted in it.  The plastic is heated until soft and the lid is closed with the vacuum cleaner running and it is pulled down around the mold.

Here is the lid closed over the mold before heating to check the position of the mold.

Here it is after heating and closing the lid.  My hot air gun doesn't get quite hot enough so I had to go around the edges with it real close so the plastic would pull down to the screen.

I trim the pieces to have a flange on the upper part and then put them in from the inside and they end up flush on the outside.  Now they are wrapped in paper  and stored in a baggie to protect them from scratches until I need them.