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