As I have NO spare room in the Smith Mini and very little need of cross country equipment a GPS was sort of not in the plan. However I do hope to do some cross country now and then. A panel mount was out of the question, an iPad way too large, and I question the value of an iPad Mini at these atrocious prices for so little use. So, awhile back I was able to catch one of the few original AV8OR GPS's on sale at ACS, as the size was something I figured I could make work. After much deliberation (think head scratching) I decided to use an area of the panel that was available but would have to be creative. This location already had 3 holes drilled, for what I have no idea, but I decided maybe I could make them useful. I made up a cardboard template and decided there was just enough room to hang the AV8 off the bottom of the panel at this point, it would clear the stick by a large margin, I could still get in and out, the GPS would be easy to tune, and was easily visible. The smallness of the AV8 demanded it be close but as I had no other room it fit perfect. The AV8OR Ace was again to large to go here and there is no room beside my knees, and on the floor was to far away to read even the larger Ace. Last year at SnF I bought 3 thumb screws in preparation for this mount. the top screw being the most important is a 10-32 rivnut with the 2 lower just being threaded in to the panel for stability only. In for cross country, out in 60 seconds for general flying. I plan on hard wiring a connection up under the panel for power later this year. As I have the larger battery I get 8 hours of usefulness, way more than I will need for sometime. I have 3 O-rings slid tightly on the thumb screws behind the mount, they retain the screws when not mounted and make for a padded mount when attached to the panel. I used this AV8m last year on my treck to SnF and it is a nice unit for the dollar.
