Step one: Sweepstakes RV–10 panel overhaul

The box holding the pretty piece arrived on the loading dock at Advanced Flight Systems (AFS) in Portland, Oregon, and I wondered aloud whether the panel could stand up to the punishment it would take traversing North America to attend aviation events during the next year and a half.

“Carbon fiber is actually a lot stronger than steel,” said Rob Hickman, AFS founder and president, who has a similar model in his own Van’s RV–10. “It wins on looks, strength, weight, and durability. Carbon fiber looks delicate but it’s really tough stuff.”

The panel was custom made at Aerosport Products, an Ohio prototype shop owned and operated by Geoff Combs, an RV–10 builder and pilot. Combs also designs and produces accessories such as the carbon-fiber center console in the Sweepstakes RV–10, overhead panels, and aerodynamically streamlined door handles.

Hickman placed the barren panel on a long wooden table in the AFS assembly area where it would soon be fitted with avionics. The extreme panel makeover was beginning in a warehouse thousands of miles away from the actual airplane at AOPA headquarters in Frederick, Maryland. And that’s the way AFS prefers to do business.

“We assemble the panel and avionics, integrate them, and bench test everything at our facility here in Oregon,” Hickman said. “Then we box up the completed panel and send it to the customer for installation. When it arrives, we know that everything works the way it’s supposed to work.”

Panel overhauls—particularly total changeovers such as this one—typically take months to complete. But the AOPA Sweepstakes RV–10 didn’t have that kind of time, or budget. And even if time and money were plentiful, U.S. avionics shops in late 2019 are so overwhelmed with last-minute ADS-B installations that they simply can’t take on a major project like this one.

AFS offered a better way. In a single intense afternoon, Jeffrey Hickman, the founder’s son, loaded the carbon-fiber panel with an Avidyne IFD550 GPS, two 10-inch AFS primary flight displays, a 14-inch multifunction display, a Dynon autopilot and D3 standby instrument, secondary radio, ELT, and even a pulse oximeter. He linked them together with prewired harnesses and then connected them to the Advanced Control Module (ACM), an electronic hub that manages the entire aircraft electrical system.

“The Advanced Control Module is the heart of the electrical system,” Rob Hickman said. “Instead of having to solder hundreds of individual wires, our customers only have to connect a few prefabricated harnesses to the ACM. It’s far less complicated and more reliable.”

Once the components were connected, Hickman flipped a switch that supplied electrical power to the ACM, and the entire panel lit up for the first time.

“No smoke,” he quipped.

Jeffrey Hickman got out a checklist and went quickly and methodically through each set-up screen to make sure each item was communicating with the others. It involved making and double-checking hundreds of selections from engine fuel flow rates to moving map units of measure. As soon as he was sure every component was working properly, he stepped away from the desk.

“It’s ready to go,” Rob Hickman said. “We’ll box it up and send it to you in Maryland. You’ll absolutely love flying behind this panel.”

aopa.org/sweeps

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