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Window Replacement: Options Abound

Despite pilots most intense desires, airplane components wear out. Fortunately for their wallets, the major stuff on general aviation airplanes that are hangared and flown a few hundred hours a year-the airframe parts and pieces-should last the better part of a century. Along those lines, the things used by pilots to see through portions of the airframe, the windows, generally have a useful life measured in decades.

Despite pilots’ most intense desires, airplane components wear out. Fortunately for their wallets, the major stuff on general aviation airplanes that are hangared and flown a few hundred hours a year—the airframe parts and pieces—should last the better part of a century. Along those lines, the things used by pilots to see through portions of the airframe, the windows, generally have a useful life measured in decades.

I’ll note here that the windows on your airplane probably aren’t glass, they’re acrylic, though I’ll sometimes use “glass” as a shorthand term. The enemies of acrylic windows are sunlight, dust, chemicals and scratches.

Rick Durden

Senior Editor Rick Durden has written for Aviation Consumer since 1994 and specializes in aviation law. Rick is an active CFII and holds an ATP with type ratings in the Douglas DC-3 and Cessna Citation. He is the author of The Thinking Pilot’s Flight Manual or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It, Vols. 1 & 2.