A chilling sight for any aircraft owner, the panel of the author’s beloved 170 has been skeletonized in preparation for the upgrade.
THE NEW OWNER: THE ADVENTURES OF A PANEL REDESIGN The classifieds are not the only place to find your next airplane. Just like in the business world, it could be about who you know.
BY JASON McDOWELL
WHEN I DECIDED to spend a not-insignificant sum of money on a complete redesign and rebuild of my instrument panel, I was excited. Over the years, previous owners of my airplane made some bizarre de- cisions with regard to panel layout, arranging things oddly and inexpli- cably adding a second altimeter. A new panel would be an opportunity to start from scratch, positioning each instrument, radio, switch, and circuit breaker precisely where I wanted them. Or so I thought. Going into such an endeavor with zero knowledge of panel design, I assumed the process would be as simple as arranging magnets on the front of a refrigerator. I fired up Photoshop, found photos of all the avi-
onics I was planning to install, and got to work positioning them to my heart’s content. First on my list of priorities was repositioning the radios, transpon- der, and GPS. In my airplane, these are presently all relegated to the very bottom of the panel. Half are down by the pilot’s left knee, and the other half are over by the passenger’s left knee. They are so far out of the pilot’s line of sight one must occasionally duck to see the frequency windows. It’s annoying, and it’s a distraction. As I designed my ideal layout, I immediately set out to relocate the radios. All would be grouped together in perfect alignment and posi- tioned in the exact center of the panel, easily accessible by either front-
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