[Sam Oliver]

As a relative newbie in the Rotorway community I heard about problems with windshield droop in later kits made from poorly fitting panels and windshields.    I saw a bunch of pictures of what happens if you're not careful if you have the bad fitting kits.   I'm building an A600 Phoenix from two kits, both incomplete which are stripped down to bare bones and starting from scratch. And when I fitted everything from the partial kit I had and matched the drillholes, I had the dreaded droop.   Clearly visible with the naked Eye, and measurable with my levels.  I saw Paul Barroso had a simple jig he used, but then again, he does this for a living so correcting it is pretty cut and dried for him.  I asked him for some additional information on a dimension on his jig but never heard back.   So, I just went with what I saw on his picture.   For me the critical dimension that I never saw anywhere else, build videos, or manuals was the 39" across the bottom of the eyebrow panels he showed on his jig.  I hope it is correct for practical purposes.   For me that was the critical missing piece.  With that, I went about making my jig.   Which i did from scrap laying around the shop and trial and error.   I am building solo mostly so I have to plan for doing all this jig fitting with only my two arthritis ridden hands.


Way overthought.   But I felt I needed to have a good reference so I made sure my lateral drive tubes were level, and since a new build, and the seat back not yet drilled, I made sure the seat back was in proper place and had the necessary shims to bring it to lateral level.  Also measured across the entire cabin as shown with the long bubble level and I laid a straight edge on the inside seat pan edges resting on the forward portion of the pans.  Those two levels, were within .10 degrees of the drive tube lateral levels.   Franken Jig is sitting firm on the seat pan with adjustable legs (the little narrow small vertical pieces circled in red, slide up and down independently with a wingnut on the back to clamp when it's all level).  That extra effort was to be able to have it all in place while I stood back to use human eye leveling as well as actual levels.


The part of the jig that gives symmetrical shape to the top of the windshield is based off Paul Barroso's 39 inches from end to end on the bottom.   I used a French curve from my old drafting set to transfer the curve of the passenger side eyebrow to a piece of large ruled drafting paper from another drawer in my old Pre-Cad days drafting table.   Copied the identical curve onto the other side of the paper (folded it in half for mirror image), cut it out, and laid it on this board as a template.   Cut the board, marked the center at 19.5 inches and starting on each end of the jig, marked one-inch centers.  The vertical lines on the jig are measured not from center, but from the edges and used in conjuntion with the level board resting on the eyebrow cabin pieces.  Those were just so I could measure droop from each side to insure they matched.   The little small board above it is also marked with a frame/rotor system center point.  The problem I found, and it may not be one, is the center of the seat back pan;  (circled in red) well, it’s not centered with the fuselage.   It is pushed as far to the pilot’s side as possible per the instructions and everything I’ve seen and read so far.   Leveled and clamped in this position, the center of the seat pan is almost a half inch to the passenger side of center.


When I put the windshield on using this jig, it fits, works, appears and measures as level.   The holes on the passenger side match, but the pilot side holes in the cabin top will have to be filled and re-drilled.


I have the fuselage centered and laterally leveled.  Plumb bobs from the rear of tail boom, mast, and center of frame at the front all line up.   The bottom line is the droop will no longer be there after I repair all the misaligned holes in the pilot side body.   I’m not entirely sure what I am going to do if anything about the entire seat pan/back being a half inch off center.  While all my plumbs and levels are still in place, I’ll get another set of eyes on it here locally and see if there is anything that can or should be done with the centering issue.   I plan on dropping my Plumbs from each body side and measuring that distance from center to see if it also shows fuselage off center.   Oh well?

I’d be interested in what other may have experienced with theirs.   In the meantime, the body panels will be coming off here very soon and I’ll be moving on.   Have to finish mounting tail boom vertical fin brackets (That’s what I was doing when RotorX folded and the parts dried up).  Then on to flight control installation.    If you have any comments or questions I’d love to hear them.

[Homer Bell]

All I’ll say is the main shaft doesn’t necessarily end up in the center of the body shell. I’ve found that who ever built the newer windscreens may have cut them to narrow to enable a good finished product. I believe the factory had a different supplier than the people I use for my screens. My suppliers are the people who made them since 1985. I think they used a different vendor for Phoenix kits.
The Phoenix screen I measured across the top was 1/2” narrower than the older screens. This makes it necessary to pull panels together to get the screen to fit. Unless you have a plastic stretcher, you may have fit problems.