It felt really good to finally be installing the electrical components. There's a lot of work involved in the electrical system. RotorWay supplies complete electrical schematics. The directions in the construction manual and video give general instructions with a lot of room for interpretation.

In this section, we install the wiring harness, instrument panel, overhead switch panel, radios, FADEC, ignition system, inertia switches, Altitude Compensation Induction System (ACIS), navigation lights and strobe; not necessarily in that sequence.

The electrical system leaves room for a considerable amount of customization. One of the things I decided to customize is the instrument panel. Instead of installing the stock RotorWay black covering I decided to use Oak veneer. It turned out so good I decided to use the Oak veneer to trim out other parts of the interior as well.

The instrument panel has to be trimmed to fit into the instrument pod. You can see there's a good bit of trimming to be done to get a good fit. As it turns out, all the holes for the instruments had to be trimmed a bit also to accommodate the instruments.

Here I'm using the band saw to get the panel close to it's final dimensions.

I decided to mount the panel with the top recessed into the pod more than the RW specifications. I just like the look better.

I used a piece of aluminum L bracket clamped to the panel to prevent the panel from bending and distorting during the fitting

Once the panel was positioned to my liking, the pod was marked inside where the back side of the panel came in contact. Those marks indicated where mounting brackets were fiberglassed in place to secure the panel

Here you can see the mounting brackets after they were fiberglassed in place. They are just nut plates on angle stock and encapsulated in fiberglass.

You can also see the mounting housing for the radio and transponder sitting in the pod.

The housings for the radio and transponder come packaged with each component. I decided to strap the two together to make one rigid housing for both components.

Here you can see the two housings clamped to the front of the instrument panel so I could mark the panel where it needed to be cut out to accommodate the radio and transponder.

RotorWay has the transponder positioned above the radio. I prefer to have the radio on top. So, I modified the design

This is the final look of the rear radio mount. It fits the radio bracket like a glove. The pointer in the picture is showing some rubber strips mounted in the pod to give the transponder mounting bracket positive support. I think they are overkill but it seemed like a good idea at the time

The rear radio mount bracket is so sturdy, it can be used as a handle to carry the instrument pod. Those radios aren't going anywhere!

Here you can see the rear of the instrument panel with the instruments mounted in place and the wiring harness installed. It's an easy task as long as you can correlate the wiring harness with the electrical schematic.

You can also see the overhead switch panel assembled.

Here's the finished instrument panel installed in the pod. You can see the Oak veneer I used on the panel. I'll be using Oak veneer to trim other parts of the interior as well.

The panel assembly took an entire weekend to complete. It was tedious work that required some ingenuity.

It was so cool to get this part done. This was another moment where Chip and I just stood there, speechless and stared. There was a tremendous sense of satisfaction.