By Scott Sherer

Whenever I hang around with pilots, I learn something new about flying or taking care of my aircraft.

At our fly-in at Sporty’s Pilot Shop at Clermont County Airport (I69) in Batavia, Ohio, one of our members, Elio Abiakel (N961EA), approached me with a big grin on his face. We have the same model aircraft and we both have Kennon Sunshields in the windows. The only difference, he said, was that his Sunshields go in and out of the airplane in about a minute. In my plane I press the Sunshields into the corners of the windows and hope they stay there. The Sunshield for the door always falls out.

After we were done looking at each other’s airplanes Elio said to try some Velcro from the hardware store.  These generally come precut with about a dozen in a small package for just a few bucks. They come in round or square shapes.

Why You Want Sunshades in Your Airplane

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It’s difficult to photograph Velcro squares on window molding so bear with me while I try and show the photographs. Picture 1 is the airplane with the Sun shields in it. Picture 2 shows the backing pulled off the Velcro square and placed at the top center of one of my windows. Picture 3 shows the other side of the Velcro square stuck to the Sunshield center. For most of my windows one square at the top was all I needed. On my door window I needed four squares, one on each corner, to keep it from blowing away.

So, thanks to the fly-in where I learned this little tip from Elio, it now takes me only a minute or two to get them all in and out of my aircraft! Like Elio, my aircraft was 20 degrees cooler on the inside than anyone else’s aircraft at Sporty’s that day. Give it a try — it’s a really great solution to an annoying problem!