Source: 2014 Q2 Beartracks, Mark Scott
I like to go to fly-ins and airshows and walk around. Given all the headsets, GPS, and other stuff I would rather not see disappear I like to lock up the plane so I do not have to worry about it. I found a way to make simple and lightweight locks for the windows and doors. The pilot side window is a standard lock unit from aircraft spruce (Part # 11-01600). The pilot side window has the aluminum picture frame per the manual. I added a little material to accommodate the lock and attached it in a conventional manner.



I was going to do the same on the passenger side but thought why do I need two locks? I made up a very simple and light weight cable lock system. The pictures to the right are pretty self-explanatory. The cable has loops at either end. One end is attached to the door. The other loops over the window handle. I use a check nut to secure the 8-32 screw to the door which allows the cable to swing freely. There is a washer under the screw head to keep the cable from popping off. The window handle does not turn clockwise beyond vertical. Therefore once the cable is looped over the handle the window cannot be opened. I wrapped a little piece of fuzzy Velcro on the cable and glued a small hook Velcro piece to the door to hold the cable in place. My back door lock is simple a drop down latch that captures the pull rod. Again the picture is self-explanatory.

I can easily reach the latch standing outside the plane and reaching in with my right arm from the passenger side window. There are small 2-56 socket head screw stops to keep the latch within a 180 degree arc. I do find that I have to put the latch in the down position in flight. Otherwise if in the up position it can vibrate and fall into the lock position.

The only drawback I see is that you have to open or close in a particular order, i.e. the pilot, passenger, and then baggage doors upon opening and the reverse on closing. That is the normal order anyway so it works out well.

Source: 2014 Q1 Beartracks, Russ Erb
The windows in the Bearhawk are held open by latches under the wing. The original latches I made were built like those shown on the Prototype. I was always a little concerned about this setup, since all of the loads were taken in bending on a fairly thin sheet of aluminum. I knew that one wrong pull on the window would bend the latch and then I wouldn’t be able to bend it back to its original shape. Now that I think of it, I always assumed that the prototype latches were fabricated of aluminum, but they might have been steel, which might have held up better.
Well, eventually, that wrong pull happened, so I needed to do something about it. I decided to change the design to mimic one I had seen on another Bearhawk somewhere (wish I could remember which one it was). This time I used an aluminum angle and cut a slot in one side. This way there were no weak points introduced by making bends.
I alodined the new parts and was just going to install them that way because the effort of setting up a paint booth and priming and mixing up the two-part paint wasn’t worth it for just two small parts. A friend suggested that I should at least try to find a can of rattle-can spray paint (“Krylon”) that was sort of close to the right color, acknowledging that the color match would not be perfect, but would look good enough from a distance. Knowing that red looks better when applied over white, I picked up a can each of red and white. I first sprayed the angle in white and let it dry for two days. As I was getting ready to spray the red, I realized that with some simple masking, using tape I already had, I could make a red and white strip pattern. It’s not really necessary, because the latch is right above the wing strut and it is almost impossible to hit your head on it. Even so, my wife said she liked the idea of the red and white stripes so I masked the parts and sprayed them that way.