I recently gutted my instrument panel to upgrade to a full EFIS/EMS and true moving map panel. It took two weeks to remove the old panel, fabricate a new one, and wire it all up. All I can say is... WOW!

The before shots show a panel that is workable. Everything could be seen and reached in the cockpit, but it was cluttered. After I started flying, I kept finding things to add, which made the panel take a life of its own. The wiring in back? It did not start out that way, but ended up becoming a real hornet's nest.
I elected to put in a Dynon FlightDEK D-180 EFIS/EMS and an AvMap GPS. The Dynon was a logical choice, because of its functionality, reliability, and price. The AvMap is also a superb product, with most, if not all the functionality of Garmin products, at about half the cost. Hmm...
Here is the result:
  This cockpit is a scream to fly in! It is less cluttered, everything is readable, easy to interpret, and just flat fun. If you have been thinking about upgrading an older aircraft, or just moving into the state of the art, it is a lot less expensive than you think, and it well worth the effort.
One of the most amazing things to me was the speed at which the Dynon platform establishes its attitude reference. It takes about three seconds. Lose power? Three seconds after you get it back, the Dynon knows its attitude and altitude again. With the internal battery back-up, this system is simply amazing.
The AvMap can accept XM weather, and can send GPS information to the Dynon displays (steering and heading bugs). Very nice features. The AvMap will also provide terrain avoidance color coding, another nice feature for those of us flying in areas of mountains. The navigation buttons are very intuitive, which is not something I can say for either Lowrance or Garmin systems. Personal opinion on this last comment, but it sure is easier to pull up what I want when I want it with this unit than with any other GPS I have used.
Here is what it looks like in flight. Please excuse the quality of the video, this is the first time I have shot video and flown at the same time.
Check out www.verticalavionics.com if you are looking to upgrade at a great price.
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