Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Friendliest aviation Ccmmunity on the web
  • Modern site for PC's, Phones, Tablets - no 3rd party apps required
  • Ask questions, help others, promote aviation
  • Share the passion for aviation
  • Invite everyone to Flightinfo.com and let's have fun

Lear 31A Windshield

Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Modern secure site, no 3rd party apps required
  • Invite your friends
  • Share the passion of aviation
  • Friendliest aviation community on the web

h25b

Left for ProPilotWorld
Joined
Jan 5, 2002
Posts
1,829
Looks like our left one is belly up and will need replaced... Anyone out there care to chime in on the average time to replacement for the electric heated windshield on these things. Of course, the windshield is a "vendor" item which is only under warranty for 2 years. Ours is about 4 years old...
 
h25b said:
Looks like our left one is belly up and will need replaced... Anyone out there care to chime in on the average time to replacement for the electric heated windshield on these things. Of course, the windshield is a "vendor" item which is only under warranty for 2 years. Ours is about 4 years old...

I think it takes like 3 weeks to get a new one, and 3 more to put it on....well actually that's what I'm hoping for!
 
Learjet 30 Series Windshields

Mate,

I don't know about the -31 electric, but I have seen a fair (not good, just fair) crew remove and replace a standard Learjet 30 series windshield in 4 days ... drilling and all. We had to wait another 12 hours for the sealents to fix, but that's pretty fast.

There are lots of folks out there doing Learjet windshield installs. Watch out, though. There aren't many that know how!!

TransMach
 
Last edited:
h25b said:
Looks like our left one is belly up and will need replaced... Anyone out there care to chime in on the average time to replacement for the electric heated windshield on these things. Of course, the windshield is a "vendor" item which is only under warranty for 2 years. Ours is about 4 years old...
Is there a "Smart Parts" program available for the LR31? I would look into that if your aircraft is starting to see a little bit of age. Smart parts covers all "non-completion" items. It's a great way to manage a budget so unexpected costs do not bite you in the arse. It's priced on an hourly figure which is reviewed annually and adjusted accordingly. With a program like that in place, getting this part would probably be expidited and at no direct cost (except the down time) to the operator. I would imagine this W/S is north of 30K. Also, there are lots of guys that travel around the country replacing these types of items and it is all they do, so it is usually done right.
 
I have every confidence that the shop knows what they are doing, I was just amazed that we're already looking at another one at this point. Being used to this process (and having watched it) with the Hawker 800, I never realized how much of the cockpit has to come out as well.

Was just curious if anyone had some insight in to the life expectancy of these... There is the smart parts program, but the airplane has never been on it. So to get on we'd be looking at an enormous "buy in" to bring it up to date. Fortunately, it was on MSP Gold when we bought it so we just had to pay the transfer fee.
 
Last edited:
h25b said:
I have every confidence that the shop knows what they are doing, I was just amazed that we're already looking at another one at this point. Being used to this process (and having watched it) with the Hawker 800, I never realized how much of the cockpit has to come out as well.

Was just curious if anyone had some insight in to the life expectancy of these...
WEll, the Hawker is a whole different animal. LRs and Cits do not have to have the massive amount of invasive cockpit removal that the HS125s do in order to get the W/S out. Remember, the heating elements are powered by engine driven alternators in the Hawker, so it takes a little more to get them replaced.
 
HawkerF/O said:
WEll, the Hawker is a whole different animal. LRs and Cits do not have to have the massive amount of invasive cockpit removal that the HS125s do in order to get the W/S out. Remember, the heating elements are powered by engine driven alternators in the Hawker, so it takes a little more to get them replaced.

I remember seeing a guy get knocked off a ladder trying to clean a Hawker 800 windshield without grounding. :D

Definately a whole 'nother animal...
 
h25b said:
I remember seeing a guy get knocked off a ladder trying to clean a Hawker 800 windshield without grounding. :D

Definately a whole 'nother animal...
Yep, CL60s are famous for that as well. Throw a little water on the W/S before it is touched, and this would not be a problem. I can only imagine how much that hurts.
 
H25B,
We have two 31a's and have had to have windshields replaced a couple of times. Last time that we had it done it took three days. The downtime is not hard to swallow, but the pricetag is. I think it cost around 50K. I believe that it was an outfit out of Colorado that did the install. They traveled to our place and did it in house.
Hope this helps.
 
Ours is a late model and was surprised to see ours in jeopardy of replacement at this point. The problem we had was the electric heat would only work at cabin pressures greater than 5.0 PSI. It would work great at altitude but then it would stop during the descent when you really needed it. The result was a fogged up left windshield when you really needed it.

There are two sets of electrical contacts on each windshield and one of ours has gone bad so they were able to simply switch over to the other set to fix the problem. So when this set goes we are done. So for now we dodged a bullet. I'm told the need to dismantle the cockpit has gone away with the Learjet 40/45.
 

Latest resources

Back
Top