Safety can be the mother of invention.
Over a decade ago, when Leonard “Lenny” Abraham, Jr. joined the flight crew on a Northwest Boeing 727 as the flight engineer, he watched as the sweating pilot and co-pilot performed a strange ritual of covering all of the cockpit windows with charts, maps, and even newspapers.
The crew was taping up anything they could get a hold of to block out the sunlight and cut down on the heat and the glare, but covering up all of the windows meant you couldn’t see any of the activity on the ramp outside. You pretty much just put yourself inside a cocoon.
“I’m thinking that’s pretty odd,” Lenny recalls. “He’s trying to block out the sunlight and cut down on the heat and the glare, but you pretty much just put yourself in a bubble.”
Over the years, pilots have come up with a number of ways to block the sun on the flight deck, according to Captain John Sugar, who flies Boeing 777s for United Airlines.
“It’s heat on the ground and glare in flight we are fighting,” he said, adding pilots are also concerned about UV radiation exposure at altitude.
According to the World Health Organization, “With increasing altitude, less atmosphere is available to absorb UV radiation. With every 1,000 meters in altitude, UV levels increase by approximately 10%.”
One study measuring UV radiation in the pilot seat of a turboprop airplane found that flying for under an hour at 30,000 feet had the same UVA carcinogenic radiation exposure as a 20-minute tanning bed session.
Birth of a Business
Lenny worked in an automobile window tinting business while he was a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, so he knew he had a solution for his work colleagues.
He made a shade template from a sheet of aluminum for a 727 sliding window and one for a DC-9 sliding window so that he could cut shades from automotive tint, but they still had to be taped onto the window. When other pilots saw what he had done, they offered to pay him for the shades, but they had to provide their own masking tape.
Lenny then found a static cling vinyl that would eliminate the use of masking tape. He notes it was dark enough to cut glare and heat, peel on and off without any sticky residue, and see through.
The best part? It’s reusable, so a pilot can take it to whatever airplane they are flying that day.
He took a sample of a 727 shade to the Northwest Airlines pilot store and demonstrated it by putting it up on the showroom window for the sales manager.
“That’s really neat,” she said. “I think you have a product we can sell.”
Northwest gave him his first volume order and began stocking Just Plane Shades in its store.
Soon the business took off, with Just Plane Shades being sold in a variety of pilot shops, like Delta Airlines Crew Outfitters, United Airlines Mainliner, and hub stores for American Airlines and Air Mexicana.
Lenny, whose career kept advancing to his current position as a captain flying the Airbus 321 with Delta Airlines, realized about five years ago that he needed help with his side business. That’s when he reached out to his father, Leonard P. Abraham, Sr.
Len Senior recalls that initial phone call.
“He said, ‘Dad, there’s something wrong with this picture. I’m flying a trip every week, and when I come home, I’m cutting window shades in my garage in Pittsburgh. It’s 15°. I’m freezing. I have lots of templates and I’ve got more business than I can handle. Help.”
Len Senior was prepared to meet that challenge.
He had served as a crew chief on F84s and F100 fighter bombers in Japan, Korea, Okinawa, and the Philippines. Later, he worked as a general manager at Westinghouse, where he was responsible for the design, manufacture, and sales of Computer Numerical Control (CNC) controllers that automate machine tools.
With his skills and experience, he took up his son’s challenge to automate the production of static cling vinyl shades, which were to be see through, removable/replaceable, and precisely cut to fit specific aircraft windows.
He programmed a computer, scanner, and a vinyl cutter, which are set up in his office in Sanford, Florida.
The business has become a family affair.
“Lenny’s the marketing and sales guy and I’m the production guy,” Len Senior says. “He’ll do a tracing of a window to where the computer understands it, but there’s an intermediate step that you have to go through. You have to scan the pattern and then digitize it. That’s where my daughter Lynda comes in. Lynda’s into fine arts and is very familiar with the software it takes to do the digitization. She takes the pattern, scans it, and makes what we call a cut file, which my computer understands, and sends that to me.”
Welcome to GA
Business was booming with orders streaming in from Taiwan, the Philippines, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Europe, and, well, worldwide.
Then came 2020.
“All of a sudden, this damn thing called COVID hits, and our business slowed down to a crawl,” Len Senior said. “Lenny called and said, ‘Dad, we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to get into general aviation.’ And I said, where in the hell are you going to get all these templates? Do you realize how many Piper models alone there are?”
Lenny got permission from his local general aviation airport in Allegheny County near Pittsburgh to do tracings of the windows on Piper Cherokees, Beechcraft Bonanzas, and Cirrus aircraft.
As the family processed shades for each make and model, they added them to the company’s website, JustPlaneShades.com, and the product catalog.
In 2023, some of the family attended the SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo. They wore bright black and gold Just Plane Shades T-shirts. The team gave out business cards with a small rectangular sample of the static cling vinyl attached.
Armed with craft paper, masking tape, and a marker, they also created new templates on site to be included in their product line and available to be ordered.
The first order was for a Citabria, followed by three more. Officials with HondaJet, Beechcraft, Piper, and Cirrus also invited them to trace the windows of their new aircraft.
Just Plane Shades sells general aviation window shades individually and as a set.
A full set for a Cessna 172 costs $190, while a single window costs $30. A complete set for a Citabria is $162, while a complete set for a Cirrus SR-20 is $135.
The full catalog is available on the company’s website, JustPlaneShades.com. You can also buy the shades from Aircraft Spruce.
“Expanding into general aviation has been a very smart move for us,” Len Senior says.
He adds that he feels like a hero when a pilot calls all excited about their product.
“I got a call from a guy who bought a Beechcraft Bonanza two years ago,” he recalls. “He said that he just got back from his dermatologist who told him that he had serious Melanoma. The doctor said he either had to stop flying or get some kind of protection. He couldn’t thank me enough for Just Plane Shades.’”
Another recent call was from an airline pilot.
“She said, ‘I fly the A330, and I just want to thank you so much because I was going through a bottle of SPF 99 going over to Europe and a bottle coming back. I was slathering this stuff on my face. I looked like a clown, but I needed to protect my face. Thank you.”
