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RV-8 Panel decisions..

flyingbeaver26

flyingbeaver26

Active Member
Howdy all, Trying to make the final purchase on my avionics. I have friends who say get 1 G3X and 1 GTN750. I have others that say get 2 G3X and a GTN650.
Both will fit, both are about the same cost. GTN750 requires a G5, twin G3X requires a battery back-up and AHRS. I need an IFR capable machine for occasional use, likely not flying to minimums, not my style. Pictures for visualization, stolen from this site.. Just looking for the votes on what the consensus thinks. GTN750 offers better button navigation for loading FP's. However, twin G3X's offer a slew of configurable real estate. Thoughts?
 

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I use a single screen for occasional IFR to minimums. I find it totally adequate. I would also consider ditching the 507 and using the auto pilot control from the screen. message if you want to chat more offline.
 
I'm in the process of installing a GDU460 (10" screen) and GTN750xi in my RV-8 for several reasons. I don't like how low the double screens sit on the panel. I much prefer working on the 750 over the 650. There's nothing a second G3X screen can display that I can't display on one G3X screen and a GTN750. I also want a G5 for the dissimilar architecture to the G3X and built in back up battery and ADAHRS. And as you mentioned, the price works out basically the same.

Here's my layout. I don't put the 750's top bezel in line with the top bezel of the G3X because I want the tops of the screens to line up because I think it looks better (the screen will stand out a lot more than the bezel when on and it makes scanning back and forth between the screens easier on the eyes) and also it lets you put the G3X even higher.

Panel.JPG
 
You do not need two large screens. In the RV8 if you want all the goodies, some will have to be remote and activated on the EFIS.
Don't buy anything until you talk with Rob Hickman at AFS.
 

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I'm working on my panel design as well, and sort of trending towards two large screens for backup purposes. There isn't much panel space overall, so the more remote things we can have the better - but then if you loose your single GDU those remote things (transponder, audio panel, coms, etc) become a liability - so having a second GDU gives a backup and prevents at least that single point of failure. I'm thinking two GDUs, autopilot panel, G5, 650xi with the rest mounted remote behind the panel. Like you, I only need occasional light IFR.
 
inktomi said:
I'm working on my panel design as well, and sort of trending towards two large screens for backup purposes. There isn't much panel space overall, so the more remote things we can have the better - but then if you loose your single GDU those remote things (transponder, audio panel, coms, etc) become a liability - so having a second GDU gives a backup and prevents at least that single point of failure. I'm thinking two GDUs, autopilot panel, G5, 650xi with the rest mounted remote behind the panel. Like you, I only need occasional light IFR.
Click to expand...
Not saying your approach is bad just just wanted to add this. I think you're correct that you can't control the Garmin remote transponders, COMs or audio panels supported by the G3X system without a G3X screen, but in the extremely rare chance you lost your only G3X screen, those devices would still work, you just wouldn't be able to change their settings. You'd have the G5 to keep you oriented and you could use the autopilot and still communicate while you try to get VFR and land.
 
This is an amazingly powerful combo. I plan to repeat it on the new project. I think you will find that a single G3X screen will be all that you need. Upspend on the left side as desired!

1745975570051.jpeg
 
After much gnashing of teeth and looking at all options for my RV-8 panel upgrade, I went with a single screen G3X, a G5, a GNX-375 with the transponder and ADS-B, a Garmin GMA-245 comm panel, a -507 AP controller, and both a panel mount and remote mount radio for dual radio capability.

I fortunately got to fly other people's airplanes with different setups before making the decision. My mission statement was "ease of use, occasional IFR if needed to get somewhere"..... but I wanted as much ergonomics and less "Menu hunting" as possible. Dual radios and a comm panel for me was a must because I do a lot of formation flying and not having to dig into several menu layers in the G3X. Dual radios also allows me to talk to my wingmen while also easily flipping over to talk to ATC or picking up ATIS, etc. I didn't like when I flew friend's airplanes and I had to go into the G3x menu a couple of layers deep to change the radio volume, or do things with the AP, etc. The audio panel made it also really easy to swap radios and customize the layout. I also have "radio swap" for the primary radio mapped to a button on my Stick grip. That one thing is about my fav feature of all, especially when in Fingertip and I don't really want to have to look down into the cockpit to swap radios.

I think the double screen G3X is overkill, imho. Especially in an RV-8. AS others have said, I prefer it to sit as high up as possible and as centered as possible. My setup ended up being pretty much exactly what I had hoped for. 1745979896431.pngIMG_6967 2.JPG
 
Thanks everyone, this helps a lot. I think I'l convinced not to get all stupid with a double display.. One additional question... as 90% of north Americans are right-handed, I personally want my right-hand dexterity when operating these complex devices, and much of that time I'd imagine I'll have the A/P on, so my right hand is free.... But almost every single screen set-up I see has the radio stack on the left side. Does everybody just get used to the left-handed radio interaction?? Seems a bit more difficult, even in my decathlon, I often grab the stick with my left hand to tune radios with my right.. Thougths?
 
flyingbeaver26 said:
Thanks everyone, this helps a lot. I think I'l convinced not to get all stupid with a double display.. One additional question... as 90% of north Americans are right-handed, I personally want my right-hand dexterity when operating these complex devices, and much of that time I'd imagine I'll have the A/P on, so my right hand is free.... But almost every single screen set-up I see has the radio stack on the left side. Does everybody just get used to the left-handed radio interaction?? Seems a bit more difficult, even in my decathlon, I often grab the stick with my left hand to tune radios with my right.. Thougths?
Click to expand...
I went through that same debate as well. I opted to go with the left mounted stack specifically so I could still fly with my right hand like normal on the stick in my RV-8 and be able to manipulate the stack (AP, Audio panel, radio, GPS, etc) with my left. You're not going to be on AP all the time (going in and out of the traffic pattern, formation flying, or just hand flying because its fun). So I set it up to be the most ergonomic for all situations. And yes, your left hand will pick it up easily.
 
flyingbeaver26 said:
Thanks everyone, this helps a lot. I think I'l convinced not to get all stupid with a double display.. One additional question... as 90% of north Americans are right-handed, I personally want my right-hand dexterity when operating these complex devices, and much of that time I'd imagine I'll have the A/P on, so my right hand is free.... But almost every single screen set-up I see has the radio stack on the left side. Does everybody just get used to the left-handed radio interaction?? Seems a bit more difficult, even in my decathlon, I often grab the stick with my left hand to tune radios with my right.. Thougths?
Click to expand...
I too have been perplexed by the radio stack on the left side. I will be doing a similar panel upgrade later this year. My thought was to put the radio stack on the right side. Or as a minimum, put the autopilot controller on the right. This way, I could keep my hand on the throttle, while making autopilot changes, or changes to the navigator or G3X.
 
RV8Squaz said:
I too have been perplexed by the radio stack on the left side. I will be doing a similar panel upgrade later this year. My thought was to put the radio stack on the right side. Or as a minimum, put the autopilot controller on the right. This way, I could keep my hand on the throttle, while making autopilot changes, or changes to the navigator or G3X.
Click to expand...
For me, the main thing is to keep my right hand on the stick. I like my left on the throttle with brief radio tuning or AP commands with my left. I have flown a stick with right mounted radios so either way is acceptable engineering wise. I guess it comes down to personal preference. You could run a poll to see how many prefer which way for resale but any avionics house could probably tell you customer preference numbers.
 
Notso said:
After much gnashing of teeth and looking at all options for my RV-8 panel upgrade, I went with a single screen G3X, a G5, a GNX-375 with the transponder and ADS-B, a Garmin GMA-245 comm panel, a -507 AP controller, and both a panel mount and remote mount radio for dual radio capability.

I fortunately got to fly other people's airplanes with different setups before making the decision. My mission statement was "ease of use, occasional IFR if needed to get somewhere"..... but I wanted as much ergonomics and less "Menu hunting" as possible. Dual radios and a comm panel for me was a must because I do a lot of formation flying and not having to dig into several menu layers in the G3X. Dual radios also allows me to talk to my wingmen while also easily flipping over to talk to ATC or picking up ATIS, etc. I didn't like when I flew friend's airplanes and I had to go into the G3x menu a couple of layers deep to change the radio volume, or do things with the AP, etc. The audio panel made it also really easy to swap radios and customize the layout. I also have "radio swap" for the primary radio mapped to a button on my Stick grip. That one thing is about my fav feature of all, especially when in Fingertip and I don't really want to have to look down into the cockpit to swap radios.

I think the double screen G3X is overkill, imho. Especially in an RV-8. AS others have said, I prefer it to sit as high up as possible and as centered as possible. My setup ended up being pretty much exactly what I had hoped for. View attachment 86468View attachment 86469
Click to expand...
I like your panel layout.
What does the iPad give you that isn’t available on the G3X?
Would a second G3X serve the same function, or is there an advantage to using the iPad?
I ask because I fly every day at work with two displays and an iPad (iPad primarily for charts and weather). But it seems like a G3X would be capable of both of those tasks…
 
I have two 7" G3X displays in my RV-8, plus the GTN625 and G5. Do I miss the larger display? Sometimes - but it's pretty nice having semi-redundant units:


N34PB Panel-Small.jpg
 
GyroF-16 said:
I like your panel layout.
What does the iPad give you that isn’t available on the G3X?
Would a second G3X serve the same function, or is there an advantage to using the iPad?
I ask because I fly every day at work with two displays and an iPad (iPad primarily for charts and weather). But it seems like a G3X would be capable of both of those tasks…
Click to expand...
I like the weather and data acces better on the ipad. Also a true sectional. Ialso set up the g3x as track up and the ipad as north up. Much better awareness and planing enroute imho.
 
RV8Squaz said:
I too have been perplexed by the radio stack on the left side. I will be doing a similar panel upgrade later this year. My thought was to put the radio stack on the right side. Or as a minimum, put the autopilot controller on the right. This way, I could keep my hand on the throttle, while making autopilot changes, or changes to the navigator or G3X.
Click to expand...
Why is it more important to keep your hand on the throttle and not the stick?
 
GyroF-16 said:
I like your panel layout.
What does the iPad give you that isn’t available on the G3X?
Would a second G3X serve the same function, or is there an advantage to using the iPad?
I ask because I fly every day at work with two displays and an iPad (iPad primarily for charts and weather). But it seems like a G3X would be capable of both of those tasks…
Click to expand...
Honestly, I very rarely fly with the iPad now that I’ve gotten used to the G3X interface. I like to have it on XCs because it’s easier to search for stuff and to make quick route changes and then “send to panel”. The iPad also has better overlays for current stuff like NOTAMS, TFRs, etc that the G3X is not going to have. But for local flights or even breakfast XCs, I don’t even bother with the iPad now.

And no, I don’t think a 2nd smaller G3X would be better. I really like the big centered display.
 
Notso said:
Why is it more important to keep your hand on the throttle and not the stick?
Click to expand...
I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that as that is the way I currently fly. My current panel doesn’t have much glass or even an autopilot. The panel stack (an old 430 and the the 327) is on the left side. I fly with my right hand and manipulate the 430 and the throttle quadrant with my left hand already. I guess my thinking was that since I fly with my right hand, I would “fly” the autopilot with my right and leave my left hand on the throttle as I make changes to the autopilot.

Of course, if the panel stack was on the right side, I would either have to take my hand off of the stick or reach across with my left hand. That’s not going to work. Thanks for reminding me of that! I plan to leave the radio stack on the left side when I upgrade the panel later this year. If there was enough real estate on the RV-8 panel, I might consider radio stack on the left and autopilot on the right though.
 
RV8Squaz said:
I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that as that is the way I currently fly. My current panel doesn’t have much glass or even an autopilot. The panel stack (an old 430 and the the 327) is on the left side. I fly with my right hand and manipulate the 430 and the throttle quadrant with my left hand already. I guess my thinking was that since I fly with my right hand, I would “fly” the autopilot with my right and leave my left hand on the throttle as I make changes to the autopilot.

Of course, if the panel stack was on the right side, I would either have to take my hand off of the stick or reach across with my left hand. That’s not going to work. Thanks for reminding me of that! I plan to leave the radio stack on the left side when I upgrade the panel later this year. If there was enough real estate on the RV-8 panel, I might consider radio stack on the left and autopilot on the right though.
Click to expand...
One option I considered was a suggestion from @Taltruda to put the AP controller in the center under the G3X and you can rest your hand on like the bottom of the panel and use your thumb to adjust the wheel if its bumpy and bouncy. He might be able to explain it better. I ended up putting the AP at the bottom of the stack for that reason, but kept it on the left to keep the panel looking symmetrical. Either would work well.

Probably about the only two things I wish I had done in retrospect was add a small "glove box" under the G3x. My previous RV-8 had that and it was a perfect place to store small stuff like pens, keys, glasses, phone cords, etc. The other thing is I wish I had added a couple of annunciator lights like a "hey dummy you forget to turn on your alternator light" or like a an AP disconnect light. Sure all of that is available elsewhere, but they are not always obvious. I like having big bright lights that say "somethings wrong, you need to investigate".

1746654441528.png
 
Notso said:
One option I considered was a suggestion from @Taltruda to put the AP controller in the center under the G3X and you can rest your hand on like the bottom of the panel and use your thumb to adjust the wheel if its bumpy and bouncy. He might be able to explain it better. I ended up putting the AP at the bottom of the stack for that reason, but kept it on the left to keep the panel looking symmetrical. Either would work well.
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting a very nice panel pic. I'm considering locating avionics as high as possible to maximize my view of them, but also to see if I can cutout the lower part of the panel for stick clearance if I want to increase the height a little. I think 1" would be easy, and more would be possible, depending on how much stuff needs to be in the radio stack. In my plane, the ergonomic improvement of more stick length seems clear.

How did you get the GDU 460 so high?
 
Avionics are a big investment; I was dead set on a single G3x and GNX375 until I flew that configuration for a few approaches. I highly recommend you find an aircraft you can try and shoot some approaches with different Garmin stacks, and if you can in actual. That drastically changed my opinions on some of the setups I have seen.

Ultimately, I chose a single G3x, G5, 750, and an AP panel. Remote radios and transponder never bothered me, so they aren't on the panel anymore. You can control the AP from the G3x, but it is awful and super bad in actual IFR or on a coupled approach.
 
Here is my layout
IMG_0220.jpeg

GDU460, GDU470 high on the panel with a GNX375 and GMC507 below. Remote radios. Dual ADAHRS. My thought was to keep my primary displays high which is what I use 90% of the time. Only need true IFR capabilities rarely.
 
One of my favorite parts about the amateur built world is all of the variety and creativity when it comes to panels. To each his own and there are a lot of interesting and unique designs on display in this thread.
 
Some thoughts for routine IFR installs:
- Two displays provide the redundancy I require.
- Left hand running the GTN-650 is straight forward, even for right handed pilots.
- I consider an iPad anywhere near the panel to be a bad idea. My iPad is for flight planning and for the fourth backup to the panel. As such it stays tucked away while flying - other than feeding music to the audio panel.
- GTN-750 is not a substitute for a second display. I suggest the GTN-650 or GPS-175 if you don’t want NAV/LOC/GS.
- Place the 650 or 175 as high on the left side as possible.
- The audio panel is the least used box, so put it in the least valuable panel area.
- The AutoPilot module is on the right side as it need not be stared at to manipulate.
- Comm #2 (the Dynon radio) is mostly operated via the SkyView display.

I prefer SkyView over the G3X. That said the new build will have a G5 instead of the steam gauge airspeed instrument.
Carl
 

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Ben Ellis said:
I'm in the process of installing a GDU460 (10" screen) and GTN750xi in my RV-8 for several reasons. I don't like how low the double screens sit on the panel. I much prefer working on the 750 over the 650. There's nothing a second G3X screen can display that I can't display on one G3X screen and a GTN750. I also want a G5 for the dissimilar architecture to the G3X and built in back up battery and ADAHRS. And as you mentioned, the price works out basically the same.

Here's my layout. I don't put the 750's top bezel in line with the top bezel of the G3X because I want the tops of the screens to line up because I think it looks better (the screen will stand out a lot more than the bezel when on and it makes scanning back and forth between the screens easier on the eyes) and also it lets you put the G3X even higher.

View attachment 86389
Click to expand...
Ditto on your recommendation Ben. The only thing I'd do differently is reverse the750 and AP controller to the right side and the G5 to the left. Unless maybe you're left handed... But the mechanical aspects of your right hand to the 750 and AP makes more sense to me. Yeah, I know, there is that thing about a control stick, but I still like my idea. Also agree with your "leveling the screens" not the bezels. I strongly recommend, as you do, the 750 rather than another G3X.
Just my thoughts
 
Carl Froehlich said:
Some thoughts for routine IFR installs:
- Two displays provide the redundancy I require.
- Left hand running the GTN-650 is straight forward, even for right handed pilots.
- I consider an iPad anywhere near the panel to be a bad idea. My iPad is for flight planning and for the fourth backup to the panel. As such it stays tucked away while flying - other than feeding music to the audio panel.
- GTN-750 is not a substitute for a second display. I suggest the GTN-650 or GPS-175 if you don’t want NAV/LOC/GS.
- Place the 650 or 175 as high on the left side as possible.
- The audio panel is the least used box, so put it in the least valuable panel area.
- The AutoPilot module is on the right side as it need not be stared at to manipulate.
- Comm #2 (the Dynon radio) is mostly operated via the SkyView display.

I prefer SkyView over the G3X. That said the new build will have a G5 instead of the steam gauge airspeed instrument.
Carl
Click to expand...
Carl,

I like this layout and will be doing something similar. I will also have the G5 but probably not the second Dynon screen. Question: Did you consider using the Dynon intercom panel rather than the PS Engineering audio panel?
 
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