Stock 7 Panel

[pilot28906]

Working on the panel sub-structure and have the panel temperarely screwed to the F-745 ribs. I notice that the ribs attach the panel directly in front of the pilot. I am assuming the EFIS would have to be mounted on either side of the rib. I do not want to modify the structure so does anyone have some photos of how they mounted their instruments avoiding the ribs?

Thanks

[rv7charlie]

I spent quite a while trying to manage it, and finally gave up. I left short 'stubs' of the orginal rib sticking out of the front bulkhead, just in case I can fabricate an offset brace to catch the top/bottom of the panel. I'm pretty sure that others have also cut one or both of the ribs. There's not much in the way of structure, except to stiffen the panel itself.

Charlie

[Smilin' Jack]

I cut the rib on the pilot side and made a doubler Made a copy of the rib and moved it to the left as view from the pilot seat.
Made a flange on the back attached it to the panel. Where it was cut from I put in the doubler and rivited it to the back of the sub panel and the rib from the firewall to the subpanel.


I you are going to fly instruments you'll want the
EFIS in front of you... and your radios approximately in the cennter.

I think someone posted and said navigation radios have to be within 10 inches of the pilots instruments....

You'll like the EFIS in Front of you....

Jack

[RV7A Flyer]

Cut mine off so that the EFIS is centered on the pilot. Made the radio trays into a nice beefy structure, bolted to the bulkhead, that is way stiffer than the rib ever was, anyway.

In the end, no big deal.

[BillL]

Being an engineer, and looking at the fact that this rib was one piece, it appears to carry much of the load of that bulkhead. So - I could not bring my self to cut it out. I did tell Steins crew to locate the instruments where they made most sense, and then we would discuss the rib. They added an angle to either side of the G3X's and here is that I did with the rib. It remains one piece, but with the added perimeter angles, it is pretty stiff. It was an experiment and pieces were added until it was stiff.

[RV7A Flyer]

Originally Posted by BillL

Being an engineer, and looking at the fact that this rib was one piece, it appears to carry much of the load of that bulkhead. So - I could not bring my self to cut it out.

Just for the record...I didn't, and I don't think anyone does, leave the rib out entirely, but rather we all just cut it off aft of the bulkhead and create a different way to stiffen things up (moving it, adding different structure elsewhere, etc.).

An awful lot of RVs out there have done this with no ill effects of which I'm aware. I do like the angle solution, but there was no way to accomplish that and get a 10" screen centered on the pilot in my tip-up.

[Snowflake]

I can't recall anyone from Van's ever recommending against modifying that sub-structure to accomodate instruments. The factory website's RV-7 page shows a panel that I believe would have to be modified to mount the instruments this way:



If you look at the RV7/7A gallery linked to on the same page, there are many examples of panels which would need substructure modification to install the large screens.

I like the suggestion of making solid supports for your radio stack that tie the panel to the sub-panel on either side of the radios. You could also make a smaller rib that ties them together on the outboard side of the EFIS screens.

[RV7A Flyer]

Originally Posted by Snowflake

I like the suggestion of making solid supports for your radio stack that tie the panel to the sub-panel on either side of the radios. You could also make a smaller rib that ties them together on the outboard side of the EFIS screens.

Yeah, this worked out really well. I may have some pics somewhere that show it, if I do, I'll post one or two.

I used the DJM throttle quadrant, too, below the radio stack and used a couple of beefy pieces of angle aluminum between the bulkhead and the panel there, to which the quadrant is bolted, thus adding stiffening to the whole kit-and-caboodle (figuring that the quadrant would gets lots of fore-and-aft forces acting on it all the time).

[pilot28906]

Thanks for the info. Looks like moving the rib is the way to go. Seems strange to have the EFIS to the side.