This is the story of a project that was born in a conversation inside the hangar. My friend Marco, owner of the RV8 told me, "I would like to do a new panel for my plane, but I can't do it alone, it's quite a few years I have this idea"
I told him that I could help him out, so the same night I sent him a CAD Project of a panel, he was very anxious of the idea so we spent the next 10 nights with teamviewer and skype spending hours and hours of mutual confrontations.
The first difficult was the space, there's not allot of space in an RV8 panel so we couldn't underestimate every aspect! front obstructions, back obstructions and composition of the instruments. after so many tries we had the final draft, so the next step was the cutting of the panel.
He gave me website where they do the numeric controll cutting, and he told me by phone "you know, it would be quite nice to have the words engraved can we do that on little pannels?"
The very same night I started to redesign the panel thus I liked the idea I wanted the engravings in the same panel. It was very difficult maintain the alligments, but after so many tries we had it! sent the file after one week we had the panel! he was very happy of the result, so the inital state was to redimension the existing wiring for the new panel and instruments. we spent entire nights studying every wiring diagram, and the first panic overcame.
He started having doubts about having a good final on this project, but after that morning that I helped him out encouraging him, Marco was more conviced that there was a good way out.
Much of the problems where then resolved easily and t was starting to have the final result.
2 days ago the static test, went perfect! the day for the first flight test came, Marco who has a long history of flight made the takeoff, everything went perfect. We are now proud to share our project with all of you, because it strenghten our friendship, and the love for the RV8!
The old panel:
The New Panel