Door Latch Handle Mods

This is also not part of the RotorWay kit but as far as I'm concerned its a must do.

A few years ago in Michigan a fellow
lost his life  "NTSB# " CHI00LA135 " 
when what they think happened was one of his doors came off while he was in flight.

From what I get out of it the door came off and went through the tail rotor causing him to crash. There's a couple of rumors going around, one being the use of quick latch pins or quick release hinges and another about people forgetting to latch the doors prior to taking off. I've also heard from a couple people saying the door just poped open on it's own.

One such person was Stan maige of Texas.  He was alone on a cross country flight from his home town in Texas on his way to John Spurlings 2004 Fly In in Westport Oklahoma.  In mid flight well into his trip, the door just flat out poped open and luckily he was able to set down to deal with it.  He ended up sealing it to the helicopter with duct taped it for the remainder of the flight to Oklahoma.

None the less make sure it's on and part of your check list.

The passengers side of the ship has an issue

in the lower part of the body where the seatback meets the floor pan.

It sticks out way to much and has too sharp of a bend making it very tough for the door to fit snugly to the body.

It causes the door to always be in a bind when it is latched and puts an extreme amount of strain on the rear door latches.

This is something RotorWay should have fixed long ago
but I guess it's more trouble to modify the mold then they feel it's worth.

Anyhow, until they do we're not only stuck with it and from what I know to date so are new buyers.

When you make your doors you mold the frames and plexiglass to the opening with heat and it looks great until they have been off the ship for the summer and you go to reinstall them. The pilots side will still fit great but the passengers side will straighten itself out and not want to conform to the body. When I first reinstalled my passenger door for the winter I set up a salamander heater so that it blowed at the passengers side of the ship and with the aid of a heat gun I heated the door until it got hot enough to conform and then I latched it, allowing it to cool and it worked out pretty well as long as the door hasn't been left unlatched for any long period of time, especially of it's a warm day.

Our fix was to add 2 extra latches at the rear of each door

allowing the corners to be pulled in tightly hopefully preventing them from being sucked open.

You really don't need to make a set for the pilots door because it fits great but it wouldn't match the other side if you didn't. 

Another thing we did was add a T Handle locking unit to both sides.

You can buy these handles from any camper top retailer for about $4 to 8 bucks each and there just about all keyed the same.

The main reason we did this was because we didn't like having the slot in the window with that peg sticking out of the glass. Later we were really glad we did because it allows you to lock the door to keep people from fooling around with things in the ship.

You still have to be careful that someone doesn't come up and rotate the handle anyway because if they turn it hard enough it can and will crack the plexiglass causing you to have to make a whole new door.

Grrrrrrrrr!!

END