Additional Panel Setup Research

While I’m waiting for this lockdown to conclude, I’m really just continuing my research. I wanted to discuss the build with my local EAA chapter here in Oklahoma City before I made the purchase of the empennage kit which would need to include tools as well. I’m hoping they will have some good insight, tips to share, and recommendations. So, in my continued research, I am most interested in the panel setup and the avionics, which is something I’ll be using quite a bit of during flight both in VFR and IFR conditions.

I don’t want to call any companies and get them riled up or waste their time on how to set up my panel, but the Garmin setup looks very fascinating! They have so many backend modules that integrate with the G3X and it reminds me very much of the days of my private pilot training using the G1000. I’m very impressed by the Garmin G3X Autopilot system. According to the literature I’ve read, the additional components you would buy are the smart servos for either the roll, roll/pitch, and roll/pitch/yaw configuration you desire and it will integrate with the system. You then access all of the controls through that panel.

I’m also interested in the ESP (not telepathy, lol but it stands for Electronic Stability and Protection. It allows the system to protect you from going beyond your airplanes operating envelope. Their video explains it better than I can, but it works in both the roll and pitch categories to keep you from over banking or stalling/overspeeding the aircraft.

I will say I’m torn about weather to get a GTN650 and have a third G3X panel for viewing weather, etc, or if I should go with a GTN750. The only thing that has ever bugged me about the GTN650 is not being able to see my COMM and NAV radios at the same time. It takes longer to make sure I’m listening to the right NAV frequency and actually caused me some issues during training where I kept forgetting to make the frequency active when I would load an approach because I would just forget about it. Out of sight, out of mind. But I’m not sure if it’s worth the additional cost to do that and not have as big of a screen. Still looking into that as I might be able to see both the COMM and NAV frequencies on the G3X instead which would fix my one and only issue with the GTN650 at this time.

I ran across another RV-10 builder’s log this week as well. I couldn’t find any name to reference, but here is a link to his Blogger site:

http://buildingrv10.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-tour-of-rv-10.html

He had an excellent setup as well that was more focused on his side of the plane and only used two G3X panels. I think that would put the GTN650 further out of reach than I would like, but if all of the functionality of the GTN650 is available through the G3X it might not matter. His panel was very clean though. Here are some pictures of it.

I would have saved room on my panel by removing the autopilot controls, but it is still very slick. I like that he has a tertiary attitude indicator, but maybe that’s overkill? I need to see if both of the G3X’s rely on the same source for attitude information. If that’s the case then having a cheaper standby would be good to have in the event of an AHRS failure.

Here are some more pictures of his panel with everything up and running.

I hope to get a good setup mocked up in some visual format. Again, having something to admire and drive to gives me the most motivation so I want to have alot of visual help to keep me going 🙂