Just had the EFIS upgraded to a new CPU and Synthetic Vision. Flew it today for the first time. It was defiantly worth the extra $400 for SV upgrade; situational awareness will be much improved in low vis and at night.

What GRT unit do you have Blackrock? How bout a whole panel shot. [emoji3]

whee wrote:What GRT unit do you have Blackrock? How bout a whole panel shot. [emoji3]

Okay, not the best photos, but all I could find right now.

Grand Rapids Sport SX SV EFIS (recent upgraded from HS, internal GPS option)
Grand Rapids EIS (with fuel flow, altimeter, airspeed options)
Garmin SL30 Nav/Com
Garmin GTX 327
Garmin 396 with XM (with weather subscription)
PS Engineering 1200 intercom
TruTrak 2-axis autopilot

I love this panel and layout. There is way more functionality in the gee-wiz boxes than I need or use. My flying is VFR and I don't get carried away with doing much more than turning it on and entering way points, fuel, altimeter, etc. The stuff just works and is bullet proof so after it's been powered up for more than 10 seconds, I can begin taxing.

These were taken at 2 different locations on flights; non-stop from Tucson to Elko, NV in about 4.5 hours. The center stack photo is at 10,500 feet over the Bar Ten airstrip after just crossing the Grand Canyon - 105 kts GS, 8.8 gph, on O2 with country music playing over the Lightspeeds, a pretty sweet flight. The other two were taken over Ely Nevada - 120 kts GS (140 mph TAS), 10.4 gph. Engine is a Lycoming O-540 with CHT and EGT probes on all 6 cylinders, 70 gallons of fuel on board at departure, topped off.

Zzz wrote:

Thanks Z, glad someone could find a good photo of the panel!

Blackrock:

Great panel indeed! I appreciate the review as I have GRT going into my build as well.

Question: The blue trim around the edge of your panel looks cool; what is it made of? I need to come up with something similar and I like the finished look.

Thanks Blackrock and Z. Blackrock, do you think the EIS worth having in the panel? With the limited panel space and my plan plan of installing a GRT Sport and a Mini-X I am thinking about mounting the EIS under the panel because I don't needs its display and don't have the room for it.

Whee,

I know what you mean about panel space and I've thought about relocating my EIS, too. I haven't done that for a couple of reasons.

1) It needs to be accessible to enter fuel on board; at every fill up I update the amount. Also, having a metered fuel management system is a huge safety benefit, IMHO. I would recommend the EIS be visible solely for this purpose,
2) I use it a lot. There is so much information quickly available on it, that I go to it often, although you can get the same info from the EFIS,
3) When the big red warning light on the panel starts flashing, a quick glance at the EIS will tell you immediately whats wrong, and
4) It is the alternate air speed and altimeter so I want it visible in case I ever have to use it as a legal backup. ( I don't need back-ups to safely fly the plane in VMC, however).

I suppose it could be mounted somewhere else like a wing root, but really, it is used as a primary instrument in my panel. If I were flying IFR, I'd have dual independent EFIS's and AHRS's, (GRT Horizons, not Sports) with back-up battery power for all, but that's just me.

I use the same GR EIS, between that and airspeed they're the most used instrument. There's so much information there I like having it in easy line of site.

blackrock wrote:Whee,

I know what you mean about panel space and I've thought about relocating my EIS, too. I haven't done that for a couple of reasons.

1) It needs to be accessible to enter fuel on board; at every fill up I update the amount. Also, having a metered fuel management system is a huge safety benefit, IMHO. I would recommend the EIS be visible solely for this purpose,
2) I use it a lot. There is so much information quickly available on it, that I go to it often, although you can get the same info from the EFIS,
3) When the big red warning light on the panel starts flashing, a quick glance at the EIS will tell you immediately whats wrong, and
4) It is the alternate air speed and altimeter so I want it visible in case I ever have to use it as a legal backup. ( I don't need back-ups to safely fly the plane in VMC, however).

I suppose it could be mounted somewhere else like a wing root, but really, it is used as a primary instrument in my panel. If I were flying IFR, I'd have dual independent EFIS's and AHRS's, (GRT Horizons, not Sports) with back-up battery power for all, but that's just me.

Great points but I have a couple questions. Sorry I've been bugging you so much lately Blackrock.

You can't enter fuel on board from the EFIS? If not then yeah, the EIS needs to be readily available.

When looking at the EFIS specs I didn't see any features of the Horizon I really wanted or felt like I would miss for flight in IMC...but since I have no instrument rating I don't know what I don't know. With the Sport with SV and the Mini-X I'll have dual independent AHRS and GPS systems each running on separate batteries. That seems pretty good to me. What am I missing?

whee wrote:
Great points but I have a couple questions. Sorry I've been bugging you so much lately Blackrock.

You can't enter fuel on board from the EFIS? If not then yeah, the EIS needs to be readily available.

When looking at the EFIS specs I didn't see any features of the Horizon I really wanted or felt like I would miss for flight in IMC...but since I have no instrument rating I don't know what I don't know. With the Sport with SV and the Mini-X I'll have dual independent AHRS and GPS systems each running on separate batteries. That seems pretty good to me. What am I missing?

Hey Whee, your not bugging me so no worries there! All good questions and if I can help you save time or money, then great. You'll be in the air that much sooner and that's a good thing.

Compared to the days of old IFR work, either the Sport or Horizon are light years ahead of VOR's, ADB's, etc so you are correct that a Sport system would be good for IFR. Nothing wrong with that at all. I was stating a personal preference. The Horizon offers a lot more interconnect ability and was designed for IFR from the start. It is a really robust system, not that the Sport isn't, too. The Horizon just offers more options/features (personal preference) that I would find useful. However, that certainly comes at a cost and isn't necessary; the Sport and Mini arrangement you have in mind will work great and are a good value. If your not aware, it is worth mentioning that the internal EFIS GPS's are not approved for IFR so you would need an external IFR approved GPS, and/or a VOR/Glideslope receiver. Once you start hooking all the goodies together is where the Horizon has the advantage. You'll want to look into the details of how all that can fit together and what the minimum equipment requirements for IFR are.

With the SL30, my system would be legal for IFR and I designed it with that in mind, and with the intent of getting an IFR rating to get through cloud layers, etc and at least have the pilot trained and current/proficient for IFR. If I lived where you do, I think it would be useful in the winter. That place is a low-vis weather magnet in the winter time! I've had to special VFR out of there several times; and several times would be VFR on top to get in from Montana or Nevada and would have to find holes somewhere in the valley to descend through. I've turned around my share of times, too.

We get a lot of sunshine here so I don't have as much of a need, Also, due to the mountains, most of the en-route IFR MEA's are about 13,000 feet and there are a lot of rocks in the clouds below that. Plus I'd be in icing weather most of the year in a plane not equipped for it, and on O2, and it is really frigging cold at those altitudes especially in the winter. So I just haven't pursued the rating beyond taking the ground school.

Yeah, I'll have to catch-up on all the system upgrades, but unless something has changed, and it may have, I enter fuel on board in the EIS. It does all the fuel management calculations and sends those results to the EFIS. The EFIS has a logbook feature, and I enter fuel added into the logbook, if I want to track it which I usually do.

Thanks Blackrock.

FYI, I found this in the Sport user manual:

To access the Total Fuel function:
1. Press the left knob
The Fuel label will show the following:

OK
(Preset number)
(Preset number)
ADJ

The OK option will not make any changes.
Use this if you did not add fuel.
The top number is an adjustable fuel total. If
you add fuel, curser to
ADJ and adjust to
the amount of fuel on board. When changed
and accepted this new number will be kept
in memory until it is changed by the user.
The next number down is a user preset fuel
total in the Graphical Engine Display set
menu. If you preset this number to be the
full fuel capacity of the aircraft, and you fill
your tanks, the fuel on board will be this
amount. Adjust the curser to this and press
the button to accept.
If the EIS is mounted in the instrument
panel, fuel on board may be entered into the
EIS. This allows the Fuel Totalizer function
of the EIS to be operational as well as that
of the EFIS.

Thanks Whee, I'll have to try entering fuel on-board into the EFIS next time. Might be good if I read the updated manual again, too!