Windshield Replacement costs (not 170)

[GAHorn]

Thought we needed a new discussion thread today… so thought of the phone call I received last week from an owner who was wanting info on windshield replacement. I referred him to some of the discussions we’ve had in these forums…and he later emailed me on the subject of airplane parts costs. I tried to make him feel better about his windshield with THIS story:

I have the windshield out of a HS-125 jet I used to fly. It is over an inch thick made of 3 layers of glass. Weighs about 30 lbs.
Between two layers is gold foil rolled so thin it is see-thru, and used as a heating element to keep the glass warm for the purpose of keeping ice off the windshield, defrost off the inside during rapid descents from frigid upper atmosphere, and also keep the glass more flexible (yes, glass can flex) to prevent breakage from bird strikes. At a cabin pressure differential of 8 psi…that 3 sq ft of windshield had about 3500 lbs of force trying to blow it out of the airplane.

Yes, it was expensive…when this one showed a slight delamination it was condemned and the replacement part was $28K. (Both pilots WS were replaced… $56K for parts plus labor of course.) It was powered by a 15 KVA alternator driven off the gear-case of one of the engines.

I had a coffee/end-table made of it. The inside of the table contains a slide-out drawer I plan to put some of my Dad’s WW2 momentos inside for viewing.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

I'll bet there are many of us who could tell expensive stories. BK-117 rotor blades are 80K a piece. Gets expensive when 4 are damaged.

[johneeb]

George, some nice, must be, steam bending of the frame, around the windshield, on the top of your end table.

[GAHorn]

Yes, …first the wood was sliced into thin strips….steamed into shape then laminated back together. The windshield is not “square” with rounded corners…it’s more of a trapezoid. The glass is not physically mounted…but sitting on an inside “ledge”. I haven’t yet figured out how or if I’ll run screws thru the oirginal mounting holes…or just let it sit there. It’s not going anywhere…it’s over an inch thick and pretty heavy.

The main structure of the table is old “barn wood”…longleaf pine. (And let me be clear…I DID NOT DO this work. A young man, Carl Childs, who lives a few dozen miles from here came to our attention when our living room required extensive rebuilding from flooding duiring the Wichita convention… did all the “milling” necessary to replicate the wood boards which make up the interior walls…and then custom built a new cabinet/bar for us to replace an old built-in cabinet. We were so impressed with his talents… I remembered I had this old windshield sitting/gathering dust in the corner of the hangar…and so I asked him if he could come up with an idea for it. This is his work…and also here’s a view of the cabinet he constructed alongside the wall he milled the wood for. That counter top came out of one mesquite tree from nearby ranch country which was “butter-flied” to give a near mirror-image with a “live” edge.

[ghostflyer]

wow ,what a great idea using a windsceen that was slightly u/s for a table top. wish i had done that before i retired . i wonder what a airline wrecking business would charge for a old windscreens.

[GAHorn]

My retired TWA (now gone west) friend, Jerry VanTrease had started as a TWA copilot on Martin 202s and finished on B-707s…. had pax seats from his favorite airplane (L-1049) for relaxation in his hangar…. Something similar to this: