I’m a strong believer in engine monitoring but we want to leave the instrument panel as original as possible. Large glass displays, like Garmin G3X Touch or similar are not an option.
On the other side its amazing what modern avionic provides. The installed radio is not 8.33 kHz and also the transponder is not acceptable to fly in Europe … so it will end up in a compromise!
The ‘original’ panel …
The molding assembly is broken and does not look nice any more. We got some used ones but all don’t look good enough.
We decided to patch all holes and to start fresh …
The Garmin G5 provides attitude, speed, VSI, DG. The Garmin GI 275 what would allow engine monitoring was not available when purchase decisson was taken. Therefore the primary instruments are replaced by the Electronic Instrument CGR-30P and CGR-30C. Those, together with the traffic display fit very well in the center part.
Glider flying is very popular in Europe and you want to see them early. Almost the entire glider fleet is equiped with FLARM to see and avoid. The traffic monitoring system TRX-1500 from Air Avionics make them all visible, FLARM (for gliders), ADS-B and Mode-S for aircrafts. We will fly in VMC only with N78300 and will use the iPad for navigation. All traffic will be displayed there, but in addition, the traffic is shown on the 3rd display at the center panel.
The radio and transponder is hidden behind the instrument panel and controlled by the smal unit, center down right. For those interested in avioncs, here the bloc diagram.
Below the actual status of the instrument panel …
