At Last - The Instrument Panel

It's finally time to install the panel. It turned out to be more involved than I thought, but very satisfying. It gives the airplane project a real sense that you are in the home stretch and gives you the sense you won't always be looking at yellow fiberglass and dust.


Rather than use epanelplanner.com, I elected to go the low tech route. I made full scale cutouts of all of the instruments and tried different arrangements until I found what I liked best. There was really only one way in which everything would even fit.





Here goes. The instrument panel is all marked up and ready to start cutting holes.




A nice moment, my panel with some instruments actually mounted in it.





Shots of the back of the panel. The radio rack attaches from the front with screws. The two pieces of angle on the side are attached with structural adhesive and will hold the Airgizmo dock for the Avmap EKP IV.





Here are some shots of the rack for the radio stack. It is mounted from the front with countersunk screws and has quick disconnects on the side so that it can be easily removed for service. (man, I hope that never happens)






Here are the templates I made for cutting the hole and mounting holes for the Dynon. There is probably a high tech way to do this, but I would likely mess it up. I prefer to make templates, trial fit them to the instrument and panel, then cut.





Here are two views of the panel with the radio stack and Dynon added to the panel.






Remember that happy picture of me with the instruments all mounted? I should have known it couldn't be that straight forward. In a conversation with Dynon, they advised that the unit could not be mounted on the canted portion of the panel as it had to be exactly aligned with the direction of flight. As you can see, my panel has no spare real estate, so that was the only place left to put it.

The solution was to "uncant" the mounting surface for the Dynon and align that portion of the panel so that the unit would point directly in the direction of flight. I leveled my work surface, put the panel on it and cut out 3 sides of what would be the mounting surface. I then cut almost all the way through the remaining side so that I could flex it upwards. I used a digital level to get it perfectly level, then cut scrap glass sides for the new mount and fixed them in place with 5 minute epoxy. I then glassed and filled the new parts.





Problem solved. Here is the finished revised Dynon mount after filling and sanding (and filling and sanding....). It actually looks good.




Here is a top view of the revised mounting surface for the Dynon. You can see that it is now in the same plane (no pun intended) as the rest of the panel and therefore aligned with the direction of flight.




Here is the finished product with all the mounting holes drilled, new uncanted Dynon mount and finished in white primer, then wet sanded.





Here is the panel back from the paint shop painted in matte black with a satin clear coat. It looks great. It is ready to install after one little project behind the panel.





The AHRS needs to be mounted behind the panel and it is critical that it be perfectly level in pitch and roll as well as aligned with the longitudinal axis. In order to do this, the factory recommended installing a simple shelf fabricated from one inch aluminum angle just behind the panel. The aluminum supports are potted into the fuselage with milled fiber after removing the inner skin and foam. This picture shows the shelf rigged in place to cure after installation. What it doesn't show are the lasers, digital level, inclinometer, carpenter's square, clamps, popsicle sticks and strings used to get it into place during the 4 plus hours I messed with this to get it just so.

Some tricks learned the hard way:

For getting the initial marks, you can't beat a Black and Decker Bullseye leveling tool. It shoots a self leveling laser line out to the left and right. You just determine the position of the bottom of your lowest instrument or rack, drop down 1/4 inch and project a line to the fuselage sides.

There is no way you (or at least I) can get everything perfectly aligned in the goop in the holes on both sides of the fuselage without it s..l..o..w..l..y oozing out of position. The cure is to cut little shims out of popsicle stick and wedge them right into the goop to fix the angle in position while it cures.

I ended up with everything level within two tenths of a degree in pitch and roll. (and a sore back)





The installation begins. You can see the rack for the AHRS, etc. just behind the panel. The Dynon on its modified portion of the panel looks great, almost as if I intended to mount it that way. The Avmap is mounted in an Air Gizmos mount with a quick release latch at the top which allows me to pull it out and put it in my lap as a backup if I lose panel power. I obsessively made the opening extremely tight (fit, file, fit, file) and forgot that the latch needs to flex upwards almost 3/16 inch to release the unit. That meant 2 hours with a tiny file making the required gap after I installed the unit.





Here is the (almost) completed panel. All that is left to do is 3 circuit breakers at the lower right, a few placards, warning lights and, of course, the throttle, prop and mixture on the left.

It was a lot of work, but I am thrilled with the way it is turning out. It is exactly what I have been visualizing for years and WAY higher tech than the panel in my first plane with 1997 vintage technology. This panel will give me room to grow for years as I slowly expand my envelope in the plane and explore more and more of the capabilities. The open architecture of the software and flat panels will allow me to add capabilities in the future like TCAS and technologies not yet available. I can't wait to see those screens come to life! More to come.
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