Instrument panel mayhem

You can buy that panel setup for the Ercoupe from Skyport.

Kevin

Same panel powered up.

Gordie........That's a beautiful panel. Any Bonanza pilot would be proud to have that stack. The perfect meld of old and new. Congrats on such a great job.

Chris

The Alons and Mooney's have a different panel arrangement, a three piece panel with the "six pack" section floating on lord mount vibration isolators. I have re-done my panel after removing the vacuum pump. I am using two Garmin G5s which are certified and do not require a vacuum source. I also have a panel dock for my Garmin 796. When I installed ADS-B I also had an LOC/GS indicator installed on my King KX125. In theory, my M-10 could be instrument certified although I would never intentionally fly into instrument weather. My thought was, I'd rather have the instrument stuff and never need it than need it and not have it. I added a USB port to keep my iPad and iPhone charged in flight. Also installed a fuel flow meter since the M-10 has no usable fuel gauge except the wire on the nose tank.
I have flown it quite a bit now in this configuration and am quite comfortable with it.
I did have one issue. I wanted the radio and transponder mounted in a vertical stack so I could add a second nav/com and an audio panel but, as someone noted, the fuel tank gets in the way. I attached a photo of the panel as it currently is.

I don't think I've ever seen 2 Ercoupe panels that were the same or even similar. Mine is the usual haphazard conglomerate of gauges randomly distributed along with that big space in the middle of the pilots's side which was the glove box looking thing in the original aircraft. I want to put a couple of gyros there, a vacuum driven horizon and DG. The factory installed venturi has been removed but I have one I got from Aircraft Spruce, brand new, for $85!. I picked up some yellow tagged gyros from the local avionics shop. He GAVE them to me and said, "No one ever buys steam gauges any more." He has a whole rack of them removed from aircraft that have updated to mostly Garmin EFD panels.

But........whereas the horizon fits, the DG is too deep and will butt up against the back of the header tank when installed. I remember when I was a kid and belonged to a club that had an Alon Ercoupe, there was kind of a sub-panel thing that protruded out from the base panel to make more depth and contained all the vacuum gauges installed in the usual 'T' formation in front of the pilot. I guess I'll have to build some kind of extension like this to accommodate the depth. Or.........I could buy a Dynon D2 and Velcro it on in 5 min and be done with it. But where's the fun in that? Plus, the discretionary fund has been depleted and needs to build before my next annual this summer.

I would love to see pics of others' panels and how this problem was dealt with.

Thanks,
Chris
415C, #508
Sioux Falls, SD