Panel modification

I have been told from Aerotronics I will need to slightly cut into the middle rib, forward of the sub panel to accommodate the audio panel of my Garmin system. I believe I recollect Van's instruction set says not to cut into those ribs. What have others done?

mods

There are many people that have cut those ribs back and reinforced them to accommodate different avionics. Search these forums to find a few...

I was just looking at Tim Olson's method yesterday:

http://www.myrv10.com/N104CD/fuselage/20050610/index.html

I will be using the same method.

Getting that panel ready for those G3X beauties Jon?

I cut enough off mine to fit the center stack trays and reinforced the rib by riveting on a piece of 1/8" aluminum cut to fit the inside of the rib.

You are right - these ribs are structural and VANS say not to cut them. As pointed out, many people have and then reinforced them. That doesn't necessarily make it alright..........

paul330 said:

You are right - these ribs are structural and VANS say not to cut them. As pointed out, many people have and then reinforced them. That doesn't necessarily make it alright..........

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It doesn't make it wrong either. There is no publicly available engineering data to support either claim.

With the number of screens in most RV-10s these days, I suspect that there are more with the mod, than without. To my knowledge there has yet to be any structural failures attributed to this modification.

I rearranged my stack so I don't need to cut any ribs.

rleffler said:

It doesn't make it wrong either. There is no publicly available engineering data to support either claim.

With the number of screens in most RV-10s these days, I suspect that there are more with the mod, than without. To my knowledge there has yet to be any structural failures attributed to this modification.

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Firstly, I said it doesn't "necessarily" make it right. If a proper structural analysis of the reinforcement is done to assure at least equal strength, then all is well.

Secondly, there is data to support either claim - VANS did the initial testing on the unmodified structure and assessed it to be sound.

I also arranged my panel to avoid cutting and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my layout.

As usual, I acknowledge your rights under the US system to modify as you wish, with or without engineering justification.

paul330 said:

Firstly, I said it doesn't "necessarily" make it right. If a proper structural analysis of the reinforcement is done to assure at least equal strength, then all is well.

Secondly, there is data to support either claim - VANS did the initial testing on the unmodified structure and assessed it to be sound.

I also arranged my panel to avoid cutting and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my layout.

As usual, I acknowledge your rights under the US system to modify as you wish, with or without engineering justification.

Click to expand...

I wasn't questioning Van's data, it was data to support that the modification was safe or unsafe. While I have no doubt that some folks have made the modification without data, it doesn't mean that's the case for everyone. I simply stated the data wasn't publicly available. There are some very competent engineers building RVs. There are very few that will publish publicly due to our current tort system. The same reason why Van's doesn't publicly support many of the builder mods.

The good news is the depth of most EFIS units are much more shallow than the predecessors making this an almost moot point.