With all due respect and apologizes to the more traditional BCP types what are the pros, cons and minimum equipment requirements if someone wanted to layout a "new" front office in their otherwise perfect ride. Enough "kit" for light IFR should the need arise, cloud breaking only not in the glue to minimums sort of stuff. Anyone out there have pictures they can share of their "new" panel; was it worth the effort, which gear did you go with and why.

I have no issues with "steam driven" dials they have served us well over the years but the newer tech is easy on the eyes, functional and offers some advantage that make it tantalizing.

Your thoughts, but be gentle !!!!

Maplelft

It's sort of a hard question to answer. What do you have now, and what's missing? Are you IFR rated? Do you want to get IFR rated?

I went with a single COM/VOR radio, electric T&B, vacuum AH, and a fairly inexpensive combination glide-slope/vor/marker beacon instrument which works well if you're expert with it, and will kill you in a short minute if you try to figure it out under fire after having not used it for six months. All these instruments were strung out somewhat randomly on a traditional Cessna 170 panel.

I got my IFR with this set up, and flew IFR with some regularity with it, even from the right seat, though all the attitude instruments were over on the left. That sucks, by the way. Not recommended.

But I also think IFR is very much a shit-or-get-off-the-pot sort of thing. You do it religiously, or you just stay the hell away from it. If you aren't proficient you won't survive accidental or "light" IFR with a G5 or Aspen or a $100K glass panel any better than you will with the vacuum AH that you probably already have, so there's ZERO point in spending money on instruments if you're not going to learn to fly on them...and keep current flying on them.

Whether that's worth the money to you is your call. I found that IFR practice was fantastic fun when someone else was paying for it, and fantastically painful when I was footing the bill. Also, there's no place with a ILS approach that I want to visit, so it's of little value to me.

In the end I'm glad I spent as little as possible to get a true IFR panel, because if I'd spent a whole lot more I still wouldn't use it much. Most of the IFR flying I do now is smoke, and the traditional steam instruments work just fine for that.

One last thought...attitude instruments are not something to half-ass. I'd rather have nothing at all than something that plugs into the cigar lighter or a Ipad based system. They are simply not reliable enough to stake your life on, but having them there makes it a whole lot more likely the pilot will push things and end up IFR, where they wouldn't if they didn't have any attitude instruments to begin with.

I totally agree with what Hammer said. Instrument pilot and airplane are pipeline patrol requirements. There is no currency requirement; a really bad mix. The best way to stay current is to fly IMC. If you are not current, the safest place in marginal weather is low. You can see better down low and you can escape to the ground quickly.

Marginal VFR and IMC do not mix well. The transition will kill you anywhere things stick up into the clouds. Escape is low, not high, for those not current.

So I was just thinking about kitting out my ride with some newer, maybe lighter, less power hunger dials and thought there might be a couple of ideas out there for a 170B, pictures maybe, product suggestions etc.

All the advise is absolutely spot on, IFR and more so IMC isn't for the faint of heart or ill equipped. I currently flying about 800-1000 hrs a year IFR and a reasonable amount of that time is IMC. The idea of "light" IFR was more for cloud breaking; not in the glue, on the dials to approach minima

Cheers,

Bryce

I'm pretty happy with my panel, which is plenty for the kind of IFR my airplane is capable of flying. If money were no object at all, I might have had the whole panel torn out and modernized, but in a 55 year old P172D, it would make no sense economically. There are many who would argue that what I have makes no sense economically!

I have replaced the AI with a Sandia Quattro, which is a digital AI similar to a Garmin G5. In addition to the attitude indication, it has airspeed and altitude and a slip indicator (ball), and it has a built-in backup battery good for more than an hour. There's a software update that would allow me to also have instantaneous vertical speed, which Sandia calls a "Quattro Plus", but I haven't seen any need for that quite yet.

Otherwise, I have a standard steam panel, with a VSI, T&B, DG (vacuum powered), altimeter, a pair of indicator heads, and a digital clock. My radios are a Garmin 430W, a Narco nav/com, a King ADF, and a PS Engineering audio panel with marker beacon. My compass is a SIRS whiskey compass, probably the best non-electric magnetic compass available these days.

My engine instruments have been supplemented with Electronics International's digital fuel flow meter and digital volt/amp meter. My tach is a digital Horizon tach.

Cary

Ya, that's the kind of concept I'm thinking of one PFD, one MFD, maybe retain the engine gauges but position them a bit better.

Cheers,

Bryce
Mapleflt

That's a serious bit of kit RWM, wow

Mapleflt wrote:That's a serious bit of kit RWM, wow

It may be a bit more than I needed, but I was rebuilding from scratch and wanted to do it right while I was doing it.

I really like the way it turned out. Maybe not a typical layout, but it's really user friendly...for me, anyways.

Very well done, maybe a bit to much like my Monday to Friday view for me but very nice.

I'm thinking two Garmin G5's stacked; EADI, EHSI with a GPS feed (if possible) for track guidance unfortunately I don't have a lot of real estate to play with and still run with the analog engine instruments, for now at least

Compass mount looks kind of dangly?

hotrod180 wrote:Compass mount looks kind of dangly?

That's the backup attitude indicator.

Mapleflt wrote:Very well done, maybe a bit to much like my Monday to Friday view for me but very nice.

I'm thinking two Garmin G5's stacked; EADI, EHSI with a GPS feed (if possible) for track guidance unfortunately I don't have a lot of real estate to play with and still run with the analog engine instruments, for now at least

Can you pull a GPS feed from one of the G5s?
I really like the Dynon units, and they say they are getting close to certification... I'm hoping by the time my 206 build is at that stage that they are certified.
It's hard to work around old guages when trying to upgrade your panel. But sounds like you have a decent idea of what you want. Try to keep future upgrades in mind so what you do now interfaces with future plans.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

These are the kind of details I'm currently trying to sort thru, I suspect it may require a "supporting" device of some sort. Its not clear to me if the G5 has it's stand alone "internal" gps satellite reception from which to generate track guidance. Maybe someone within the BCP community knows !!

Mapleflt wrote:These are the kind of details I'm currently trying to sort thru, I suspect it may require a "supporting" device of some sort. Its not clear to me if the G5 has it's stand alone "internal" gps satellite reception from which to generate track guidance. Maybe someone within the BCP community knows !!

I guess I should ask what kind of track guidance you need? Are you wanting to drive an autopilot one day?
From what I recall, the G5 does have its own GPS. Not sure if you can pull it off to somewhere else from the G5 though. Bigrenna would be able to answer that I think.

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No autopilot planned, I get enough "managed" flying in my day job. Just looking for it to display a track line between flight plan way points and lateral deviation. I'm not necessarily set on Garmin its more the concept, make and model is secondary at this point

Fair enough. I really like my Garmin 796 as I use it to listen to my XM radio. The XM weather is nice to use on bugger trips as well. I like the 660s a lot as they pack a lot of versatility in a smaller package. I'm not a foreflight guy, more personal opinion then anything. I just don't get along with apple products. And if you ever do move up to an autopilot, you can drive it with a handheld but not an ipad. Again, future planning stuff...

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Sounds like a sweet setup A1, the initial research I've done indicates that the G5 should work, it does have a built in GPS receiver but I'm always keen to hear what others have cooked up.

I have a G5.
Owners manual goes on at great length about how to drive an autopilot, but i dont recall anything at all about feeding its gps signal to another device.

I was thinking two in a stack, EADI on top, EHIS below displaying gps derived track guidance. The lower on wouldn't be feeding another display just supplying its own "on side" signal. However you bring up a interesting idea; reversion, can a G5 display be "mode" selected in-flight between EADI and EHSI in the event of a failure or is that determined during the installation ? I'm assuming with a cable splinter the GPS antenna signal can be feed to both displays for redundancy ?