I’ve been wanting to take apart my Skywagon so it wont fly for a long time now, and since I’ve been busy making other airplane owner’s dreams cone true, I thought what better time to push my bird further from flying then now!

Also seemed like perfect timing (in light of looming national economic disaster) to drop a nickel on some wizbang magic.



Anyway, Out went the G5s etc, and in are going a pair of GI275’s, and I thought I’d share my initial thought…. Holy $h#t! Simply amazing.

I pulled the trigger on the G5s just before the 275 was announced, and was quietly enraged, discontented and filled with sophomoric jealousy every time I sat in my pilot seat.

Anyway, we fired up the units on the bench the other day and all I can say is wow.

Man that looks fricken ZOOMalicious dude!

Reading the title, I thought you’d got so frustrated with a new panel that you punched it…..

MTV

I'm a big fan of the Gi275's in my Wagon as well. Most of the benefits of a big screen panel without the big screen, so to speak. I guess I like the round dial look.

akgreg wrote:Man that looks fricken ZOOMalicious dude!

So much fun when Big Greg emerges from his hole long enough to take a quick snipe at Boston Greg, feels like old times around here...

Dual GI-275 and some sort of Garmin navigator tied to the GFC-500 is my current dream panel, looking good to me!

Oregon180 wrote:I'm a big fan of the Gi275's in my Wagon as well....

Curious as to why you kept the legacy steam? With the two GIs, one can toss all that stuff. In the event of failure, the second will default as primary, even showing the deviation indicator, so you can fly an approach with just a single unit. They are pretty amazing.

Folks seem to not be able to have almost nothing in front of them LOL. Before I worked on airplanes for a living, I spent two and a half decades as a commercial artist... The hardest thing for customers to do is to let go and be comfortable with empty space. They'd come to you because they loved your esthetic and love what you do... They love it because you had learned that less is more... that simple is better. You draft up a comp, they get scared, you convinced them that you know what your doing, they buy in, and at the last second, they panic and insist on just adding an element just because. LOL.

Im struggling with this now as it's always a fight to keep it simple...

Halestorm wrote:Dual GI-275 and some sort of Garmin navigator tied to the GFC-500 is my current dream panel, looking good to me!

Agreed. That's where Im headed...

Halestorm wrote:So much fun when Big Greg emerges from his hole long enough to take a quick snipe at Boston Greg, feels like old times around here...

For sure... I long for the fun old days here on BCP

I'm glad you posted about this.

I've been lusting over running a single 275 and removing my attitude, airspeed, and altimeter. From the GI-275 manual.

Standby instruments are not required for aircraft limited to VFR-only operations. The existing non-stabilized magnetic compass must be retained

So beyond the actual 275 what else is required for a minimal install?

SmokeyTheBear wrote:So beyond the actual 275 what else is required for a minimal install?

Interesting question... I've not gone down that rabbit hole since Im building a VFR bird. I'd say that its starts with the TCDS, then the equip list, then ATOMATO FLAMES etc...

If its on any of those lists, and the single 275 meets the requirements, than id say toss em... might be fun to have a panel that all there is in front of you is a single 275, a CGR30 (or another 275 as the engine mon) and a mag compass overhead. LOL

although since the wiring is not much more for two, the delta is only the cost of the 2nd 275. You need a radio, so the 355 is a pretty tempting option. Even if your VFR, the new 355 (and big brothers) do some fun stuff with VFR approaches. Following the flight director and G/S is kind of fun (and safer)

a single 275, a CGR30 (or another 275 as the engine mon) and a mag compass

Absolutely, though I'm more partial to the G5. Engine monitor next (MGL EMS-2?) Altimeter is only there for encoder to the stone-age transponder.

Bigrenna wrote:

Oregon180 wrote:I'm a big fan of the Gi275's in my Wagon as well....

Curious as to why you kept the legacy steam? With the two GIs, one can toss all that stuff. In the event of failure, the second will default as primary, even showing the deviation indicator, so you can fly an approach with just a single unit. They are pretty amazing.

Folks seem to not be able to have almost nothing in front of them LOL. Before I worked on airplanes for a living, I spent two and a half decades as a commercial artist... The hardest thing for customers to do is to let go and be comfortable with empty space. They'd come to you because they loved your esthetic and love what you do... They love it because you had learned that less is more... that simple is better. You draft up a comp, they get scared, you convinced them that you know what your doing, they buy in, and at the last second, they panic and insist on just adding an element just because. LOL.

Im struggling with this now as it's always a fight to keep it simple...

Agreed. That's where Im headed...

I had this struggle myself. I would say the answer to your question is because us older pilots were trained to expect s*** to break. In doing the panel for my Kitfox I considered a whole lot of options. Shown here is a mockup of my panel which will actually be a bit less cluttered than shown here. The upper right corner has the lighting switches (strobes, NAV, landing and panel). The panel dimmer rheostat turned out to also be an on-off switch so I'll eliminate one of the toggles and move the dimmer rotary knob up.

I'm also ditching the circuit breakers (holes to the left side of the displays) for an automotive type fuse block, which will not be on the panel.

In my case the panel is mostly symmetrical because I want to be able to fly it from either side. The MGL displays each have their own GPS, air data with built in AoA, AHRS and autopilot (if desired). I have headless COM and TXP and the displays are also my engine monitor. Early design iteration shown here

“share my initial thought…. Holy $h#t! Simply amazing.”

That was my reaction to the install quote - $17k, half equipment, half install. I just don’t see the value. Waiting for uAvionix to fix the DG precession issue.