Windscreen

So here is a photo of the windscreen, as it is when it arrives from Sonex. They are nice and give you the basic cutout and shape and all you need to do is trim the screen as required and fit it. Easier said than done however.  After 4 days and a few complaints from the wife, it was all fitted and looks great. I started by trimming the routered out section Sonex mark for you. I assume they do not cut the shape as it could possibly damage the edges in travel,  but who knows. 

Offering the screen untrimmed up to the fuselage, I had to work out how much to cut and shape. I ended up needing to trim around 15mm total (7.5mm each side) from the front and none from the rear, and it came out well. This shape tapers off so extra care is needed to be taken for trimming. 

After the screen was trimmed for what turned out to be around the 5th time, I felt I had quite a nice snug fit and this was confirmed when I used a strap to keep the profile of the screen on the nose. The rear of the screen is determined by where you trim the screen bow at the rear. I needed the bow to be as high as possible to match up to where the factory installed canopy was. I still need to replace the Canopy due to the transport damage it sustained during the trip to Perth, however I feel a lot more confident now I have worked on the screen, to attempt the canopy. I have much more to do yet so will put that on the back burner for a while and concentrate on some other areas first. 

Unbeknown to me I still needed to dimple the side of the screen mounts so the tapered screws that hold the screen in would fit. It made me cry to see my nice paint cracked around the dimples, however I will just touch them up later. 

End result after 4 days of work. It was a nice feeling to tick another feel good item off the list. It looks good now the screen is in and the transition to the canopy looks nice. There are some photos I have seen of some not so streamlined screen to canopy angles, and i'm glad mine turned out well.