denalipilot wrote:

River rat wrote:You know it's to nice of plane to not put an 0-360 on now right?

Maybe some day

No no o-470 and paint it that green color!

dudestickle wrote:No no o-470 and paint it that green color!

They call that a Bird Dog.

robw56 wrote:

dudestickle wrote:No no o-470 and paint it that green color!

They call that a Bird Dog.

Apologies for the inadvertent hijack, but that's a bumpy-back O-470-50 made from a zero-time TSIO-520!
-DP

dudestickle wrote:No no o-470 and paint it that green color!

What, no John Deere aficionados here?!

Getting back to the matter at hand- I really like the camera angle on the windscreen pic- it's my favorite pic since the new paint. It really shows off the new paint scheme!

robw56 wrote:

denalipilot wrote:Looking great Rob! Is that a mini with Foreflight?

Yes it's the iPad Mini with Foreflight mounted in an AirGizmos panel dock. I was thinking about getting a 796 but I couldn't justify spending 4 times as much. Plus I still have the 496 mounted in the lower left. I think between the 2 of them I should be able to figure out where I'm going.

Hey Rob. Is the Ipad really that much cheaper by the time a guy buys a gps reciever and pays for foreflight? Especially if going with a stratus or something similar? I just ask because I am in the debate of getting a 796 or Ipad. The capability of the 796 seems worth it to me, but I may be crazy and uniformed...
David

A1Skinner wrote:

robw56 wrote:

denalipilot wrote:Looking great Rob! Is that a mini with Foreflight?

Yes it's the iPad Mini with Foreflight mounted in an AirGizmos panel dock. I was thinking about getting a 796 but I couldn't justify spending 4 times as much. Plus I still have the 496 mounted in the lower left. I think between the 2 of them I should be able to figure out where I'm going.

Hey Rob. Is the Ipad really that much cheaper by the time a guy buys a gps reciever and pays for foreflight? Especially if going with a stratus or something similar? I just ask because I am in the debate of getting a 796 or Ipad. The capability of the 796 seems worth it to me, but I may be crazy and uniformed...
David

My IPad was $400, plus $75 a year for a foreflight subscription, or $150 for the pro subscription which I opted for, plus $15 a month for cell coverage. It has a built in GPS so it already works in the airplane without any additional equipment. If you want to add the Stratus it is about $800 and gives you subscription free WX traffic and a back up attitude indicator. The Garmin 796 is $2000 plus subscription fees for updates and XM weather if you want it. I'm sure someone else can elaborate on this a lot more than I can but I'm happy with foreflight in addition to the 496 I already have.

I started installing the Selkirk 1/4" foam today...

Awesome. Thanks Rob. I was looking at the ipads today, and couldn't figure out how to tell if they have gps or not. Do all the wifi ones have internal gps?

I think you need one with cell capability to get the GPS antenna.

Not exactly apples to apples comparison, but my wife's got an older 3G iPad2 and a few times I lost GPS signal around the mountains in the PNW. If I end up going iPad/FF over 796, I'll surely be looking for an external GPS antenna.

Thanks CamTom. I've had terrible luck with anything Apple, but was thinking of giving it a chance. My wife would rather the 796 as ut is a standalone gps, purpose built, and less likely to give problems.

Sorry for the hijack Rob. Back to his awesome project! Looks awesome man!

A1Skinner wrote:Awesome. Thanks Rob. I was looking at the ipads today, and couldn't figure out how to tell if they have gps or not. Do all the wifi ones have internal gps?

The 3G/4G enabled IPads all have internal GPS.

MTV

Sorry Rob don't want to hijack your thread but I think you nailed it on your VFR panel set up.

Currently an iPad with Foreflight and a small portable garmin 496 I think is the best thing going for VFR. Foreflight is an amazing program, its the best flight planer I have ever used. In my line of work (fire fighting with helicopters) it has made cross country planing stupid easy. The USFS gives us 15 minutes to respond to a dispatch. It used to be a struggle to find all the information, weather and TFRs along your route that could span several states, especially when your launching from some cow pasture in the middle of nowhere. I have not pulled out a sectional chart for 2 years. With foreflight I have them all and they are up to date. Before there were times I did not have the chart and neither did any of the FBOs along the route. Yeah not real great but thats how it works sometimes. You can get all this for $79 a year. Sectional charts are what $16 dollars and you update twice a year, you can see the savings.

Now as great as Foreflight is I do not consider it a navigator. It as of yet does not have a good course navigation interface. That is where the Garmin 496 comes in. It gives you a compass rose HSI style navigator laid over a map. The maps are not sectional charts but close. As for flight planning on the Garmin handheld it can be done but all the zooming in and out its hard to use for a long trip. I use a Garmin 296 and iPad in my Cessna and they complement each other nicely. I prefer to use the same setup at work even though we often have a Garmin 500 mounted in the panel. I like to run the 296 on the glare shield as a heads up display.

The 796 is a nice unit and if you were going to just have one this might be the way to go. I have found the touch screen interface on the Garmin products clumsy. We had a Garmin Aera 596 in the aircraft this winter. It is very hard to program in turbulence, fat fingers. A stylus helped but crew consensus was we prefer the push buttons of the older style.

If you fly IFR I don't think the 796 is how you want to view your approach plates, the iPad would work well for that. Of course IFR you will be navigating off a different source.



Garmin 796 $1699
XM weather $54.99 a month
Updates Light $299 a year


Ipad mini w/ cellular $429
Foreflight $79 a year
Celluar plan basic $ 15 month
Garmin 496 used $600-$700 I update every 3 years (not used for up to date flight info)



Any way my 2 cents, hope its helpful. Nice job on the panel Rob!

Ken

I got a little more work done today installing the 1/4" foam until I ran out of glue. It's a lot more time consuming than I realized it would be. None of the pieces have right angles which complicates the process. Templates are a must if you want a decent fit and it usually takes a few tries to get it right. Then you have pieces like this that require even more work...





I also mounted the AirGizmo panel dock using some brackets that my Dad fabricated and sent to me in the mail. Thanks Dad!

Man that's sharp looking!

Sweet looking panel!!

More foam tonight...

Rob,

VERY VERY nice work so far! Wow, like the rest of the fellas who undertake such a feat, you will be handsomely rewarded with an incredible airplane when done.

A suggestion if I may, consider for noise, insulating the rear baggage wall and the wing roots. Im sure you know that already but wings and tail cones transmit a lot of noise into the cabin.

Excellent work, don't give up, keep us posted!

G44

Damn that looks clean.