[sjjonesnz]

Guys, here's what I've got to with my panel...pretty self-explanatory really, and your thoughts on this are appreciated.

One thing that's occured to me is how the holes will affect the structural integrity of the panel itself. The last thing I want is the panel to fall apart while I'm pushing and pulling! Is this really an issue? How have you sorted this?

 

[Bob Axsom]

Are All Models Alike In This Area?

There are structural members of the fuselage behind my slider panel that have to be avoided in the placement of instruments. Maybe your model does not have this constraint. The panel is substantial but where I have my radio stack trays attached to the panel I added a vertical structural web of aluminum sheet with lightning holes on one side for support. The edge of the web is attached to the front panel and the side is attached to the left side of all of the radio trays. You may have to consider something like that. Several of my instruments and radios are quite long and I had to make facilitating cutouts in the bulkhead several inches behind the instrument panel. If you build up your panel on the workbench as I did and mount it with screws instead of riveting it to the upper fuselage skin you have to make sure the wire bundles and plumbing are compatible with the fuselage structure behind the panel. When I first flew my RV-6A I had 4 controls in a center subpanel as you have chosen to do. This was fine during the test phase but I flund it caused significant discomfort for a passengers legs and I had to reduce it to three closer spaced controls in a shorter subpanel.

Bob Axsom

 

[Canadian_JOY]

ELT Switch Location

Just a quick point for consideration... In your layout the ELT switch is waaaaay over on the far side of the instrument panel. When the "you know what" hits the fan, you want to be able to turn the ELT on RIGHT NOW, if you have any warning at all. Having to reach all the way to the far side of the panel while controlling an aircraft that might be barely controllable (think bird strike that damages controls or something similar) is not good. If you can squeeze it in on the left side or nearer the centre you'll find it may be the right thing to do.

Also, my aircraft is not an RV, but I recently did a complete "bolt on" intrument panel replacement using Dynon D100 EFIS backed up by a full suite of steam guages. The panel itself is .063 2024T3. I had some very small clearances between instruments and found that bolting on a U-shaped stiffener of .040 2024T3 between the instruments really firmed things up.

 

[SteinAir]

Hi Steve,

You've got plenty of metal there. Remember, there is a bend across the bottom of the panel, and entire bulkhead around the perimeter, and 2 vertical stiffners running the entire height of the panel for the radio stack. The EFIS's when bolted in are rock solid themselves, and even though you have round instruments, there is a lot of metal still left - plenty.

Next...hope you don't mind but a couple of quick critiques.

1) you CB's are too close together vertically. If you plan on using any buss bars on them and even if not, you'll want more room center to center between the rows of CB's vertically. I'd go with wider rows with more CB' and less columns. More Columns mean more jumpers between rows. Less Columns means you can use solid buss bars to gain them together, and there are other benefits as well. Grouping of systems, etc..

2) Why the extra G meter? Assuming you have 2 EFISes, this is a third...just curious.

3) Same with the CDI. The AFS does a better job as an HSI than the GI-106A/MD-200-XXX. You can run both the GNS and the SL-30 into the EFIS. If you're using it as a backup I can understand, but if your intent is as a primary then the EFISes just do a better job.

4) The ADI PII is a great A/P, but with the 430 and EFIS, a Digiflight II would all you to fly coupled approaches, the ADI PII will not. Something I'm sure you've considered but perhaps others have not.

Lastly, you're going to want more vertical room between the jacks.

Overall, an EXCELLENT panel packed with functionality at a great price point. Nice job on the layout, and I hope you don't mind the intrusion of the opinions above (they are worth what you paid for them)!

Happy building and have a great day.

Cheers,
Stein