"Wanna make it better?"

One fine day last year when I was busy swearing at myself and wondering what to do about the compass problem, a museum volunteer named Syd stopped by. I didn't know much about Syd except by an excellent reputation, but discovered that he had been an avionics tech in the Navy, and while I was a teenage Navy brat riding my bike around NAS Alameda dreaming of being a pilot, Syd was somewhere nearby working on the A-3 Whale.

Syd looked over the panel and electrical systems, asking questions and carefully examining our work. I like this... I like this.... I see about the compass problem, that's bad, what are you going to do about it? Ok, good idea... There is absolutely nothing wrong with the job your friend did, he said, it looks real good, and paused. After a moment he looked over his glasses at me with a twinkle in his eye and smiled. Want to make it better?



I hate it when people say that. I love it when people say that.

"Which way is Ireland?"

Well..... here's one big reason I haven't worked on Osp for a while. I gotta redo my instrument panel.

When we flipped the switch and put power to the avionics, the magnetic/vertical card compass promptly swung almost 45 deg off heading, and when I read the PAR-100EX radio manual it stated that the compass should be at least 6" away from the radio. D'oh!!! Even using the compensating screws I was unable to get a good alignment, and the problem remained when I switched to the Garmin GTR-200.

I discussed solutions with a couple local avionics techs, but either the solutions didn't work or I wasn't satisfied with them, too kludgy. There were a couple things that were annoying me about the way I had designed the panel anyway, so I've made the decision to take several steps backs and redo it. It'll delay flying again, but what I have in mind will pay off later, details to come later as I implement them.

First, I made some braces to hold the panel in place...

then I removed the nose deck. This gave me easier access, plus a better overall view of where stuff fit. 

I also pulled the Skyview and the radio so I could see what was going on behind the panel while I was in the cockpit.

The ACI e-flap controller is a nice piece of engineering, but I'm not crazy about the faceplate. Won't take long to make a different one that fits in better with the aesthetics of the panel.