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Another 10 Gets Its Interior

SFSA1

Active Member
This RV-10 got a full interior upgrade. Looks like it was done by a custom interior shop. Nope! It was installed by Philip, Kristine and Steve from Tucson Arizona. They purchased a full interior kit from South Florida Sport Aviation and installed it themselves. Great job guys! Beautiful Airplane!

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Did you install the overhead console with the rest of the interior or did you do it earlier? Was it difficult to install? How many hours did it take to do the whole interior?
 
The overhead console is part of our interior kit. It should be one of the first items installed. I made a mistake by saying it was a full kit. Phil decided not to use our forward and aft center console as a preference. With our interiors you have the choice to pick and choose as you desire. As for difficulty, like everything when building an airplane some things may be challenging. However, if you have built or are building an airplane our interior is the least of your worries. You can check out some of our other installations on our Facebook page. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/sfsportaviation/

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RV-10 South Florida Sport Aviation Interior Review

RV-10 South Florida Sport Aviation Interior Review

Eladio from South Florida Sport Aviation posted the photos of the interior install in my RV-10. You can view them HERE. I promised a review of our install experience, so here it is.

First the executive summary:

Pros:
Very nice materials in the kit. Well made and excellent workmanship.
Excellent phone support from Eladio and Eliane at South Florida Sport Aviation.
Good value
Good PDF install guides with photos​

Cons:
Cabin doors finishing consists of a small (5? x 10?) elbow pad piece and 2 hinge covers. I did not know this when I bought the kit. The previous interior had door panels on it. So if I had know this I would have had the paint shop finish the inside of the doors with finished paint. I will take it back to the paint shop to have the doors redone. We thought about covering them with thin grey leather, but decided that may be tricky with all the curves in the door. I think it will look OK after they are nicely painted. Bare doors just don?t seem as finished as the rest of the interior.

The seats come with the ?Flyer? logo embroidered on them. I wanted my own custom embroidery. So the best I could do was to have my local embroidery/motorcycle shop embroider ?Flying Coyote? patches. These patches were sewn on top of the factory ?Flyer? logo. The patches turned out very nice, but I would have preferred the option for custom embroidery from the factory.​

That is it for the Pros and Cons.

Center Console
I elected not to buy the Center Console or the air conditioning option. This was a flying airplane that I was replacing the interior on. I like having space between the front seats, so did not want the arm rest/storage box between the seats. I also did not want the what to me look massive throttle quadrant. I already have vernier engine controls installed.

This caused some complications because these consoles are normally installed. However Eladio and Eliane were great in helping solve the problems.

Center Tunnel
I had to find a way to cover the center tunnel. Eladio suggested that he send some of the same black ?pleather? that is used for the glare shield. That worked great. We just glued it on. The small metal tray you see mounted between the seats is there to organize my Lightspeed headset controls. This very nice and fancy looking part was purchased at The Dollar Store. A few small mods and it works great.

The other complication was that the center console, that I did not buy, would cover the edge of the carpet on the sides of the tunnel. but my carpet edges were exposed and ugly. So to fix that I bought some glue on carpet edge tape. It looks like the sewn on binding you would get from a carpet shop. Bought it on Amazon. Many colors available.

Overhead Console
The overhead console is a very nice piece. It has numerous lights and air vents. It is designed to work with their air conditioning option that I did not purchase. So I had to find a way to put fresh air in the console. I had 2 NACA scoops installed just aft of the baggage bulkhead. I bought a NACA Vent Valve from Aerosport Products and mounted this just behind the baggage bulkhead. We mounted the valve control knob towards the forward end of the tunnel. Lots of air is available from the 2 NACA scoops and there is complete control via the knob and servo operated valve. I covered over the stock back seat Van?s air vents. They are difficult to operate and don?t provide much air. The rear side panels from the kit cover them.

Baggage Area
Very nice polished aluminum trim piece for the bottom and back of the baggage door. Also nice carpet piece with leather edges for baggage door.

The top of the aft baggage bulkhead comes with a nice piece embroidered with RV-10 on it. You just wrap and glue it on. I had my embroidery shop put EXPERIMENTAL in 2" tall letters to meet the requirement.

Summary
The install guides photos show the interior being installed at about the airframe completion stage. This is probably much easier than retrofitting a flying airplane or a flying airplane. But we made it work. My friend Steve did most of the work and spent 120 hours on the interior install. I put in maybe 60 hours helping Steve.

I am very happy with the results and the kit.

Phil in Tucson
N227KP
520-250-1566
 
Very detailed write up. Thank you. I'm building a RV10 project and I'm in the early planning stages of the interior.
 
Very nice looking plane..

..and interior. Can you tell me the empty weight of your plane, Phil. I am also building an RV-10, and also in the early period of making interior design choices. I sure would like to have an idea of how much your bird weighs, with all that nice interior work, minus the air conditioner (this is probably the way I will go too)... Thanks!
 
More info

Hey SWFA, do you have more info on the piece covering the beam behind that back seat? Mine tends to get scratched as we are loading and unloading bags.
Also, the headliner for the forward part of the plane. And info on that?
I couldn't find info on either on your website.
Thanks
 
Mike my empty weight is 1697. This was a flying but unpainted RV-10 I bought. I had Stein Air build a new panel. Vic Syracuse did the install. Vic also removed the 2 batteries in the tail and replaced them with one EarthX battery. Great battery and big weight savings. Vic also swapped my 2 blade metal prop for a 3 blade MT. So after all those changes, plus getting it painted, it only gained 25 pounds.

JetCrafters in Safford, AZ did the paint job.

Phil
 
where do keep the RV10

Phil,

Where do you keep the RV10? I live in Tucson and have not seen another RV10 in the Tucson area. I hangar mine at KTUS.

We have a group that flies for an occasional breakfast if you are interested.
 
another weight data point...

Weighed N56GZ in at 1596 lbs (107.6 moment) with complete SF interior except the quad-console, do have the center console with arm rest. Plane has metal 2 blade prop, single PC925 in the back (and starting very well hot or cold I might add), no paint. Typical Dynon displays, AP, ASB, ARINC, Txpder, Comm; Garmin IFR avionics (350 AP/GTN 650 Nav/comm). Just a data point to be considered with a SF interior.
Cheers, Mike
 
I don't want to hijack this thread but I felt this bit of information would be important to prospective customers of SF Sport Aviation.

Since reading this thread and seeing the quality of the interior items from SFSA I felt this was the way I was going on my interior. My only hang up was the embroidered logo on the seat covers. I didn't want anything and much less to have to cover it up with something else. I contacted Eladio who promptly returned my inquiry and after a few emails stated he was able to order the covers without the logos. It will take 3 weeks since these are non-stock items for SFSA but it's worth it to me.
 
Headliner

Hey SWFA, do you have more info on the piece covering the beam behind that back seat? Mine tends to get scratched as we are loading and unloading bags.
Also, the headliner for the forward part of the plane. And info on that?
I couldn't find info on either on your website.
Thanks

Hi John,
I am sorry, but I haven't seen your post for some reason until now.
We cover the beam with leather, it is part of the our full interior cover. The back of the rear seats is carpet.
We are working on a new website that will bring more information and photos.
Our headliner was designed to fit perfectly our overhead console. If you have a different, adjustments are needed, but it can fit. However, it will cover the total of the ceiling, columns down to the glare shield and up to half rear seat walls.
If you want I can send you pictures, feel free to contact me.
Thanks, Luiz
 
Hi Phil,

Thanks for your detailed report on the installation of SF Sport Aviation interior!

It was a pleasure to work with you and see the results.

We agree with you that the doors should have more details. Actually, it was an option to not add to much weight to the doors since the struts have showed to be a concern. The door is already heavy and sometimes they are not capable to hold the door open.

By the way, we have stronger struts to offer as well. ;)

After reading your report and hearing some other customers, we decided to offer our seat without the logo. So, our next lots will come with no logo.

Luiz Ferreira
 
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