Builders planning a panel usually start with a question nobody else can answer for them: what are other builders choosing? Hangar Flying's Panel Designer can answer part of it. Between January 1 and October 27, 2026, 1,018 members started 2,455 panel designs there. Hangar Debrief counted which equipment those designs hold, leaving out administrator and test accounts and naming nobody.
Two cautions first. A design is a plan, not an installation: some get built as drawn, many change, some never leave the screen. And a design counts once for each product line it holds, so a panel with a G3X Touch and a G5 counts in both lines.
The primary displays
Three lines are close together at the top. Garmin's G3X Touch appears in 347 designs, Dynon's SkyView HDX in 335, and Garmin's AXIS in 323. Garmin announced AXIS on July 8, 2026, so it reached that count in less than four months. Garmin says AXIS fits the same panel cutouts as G3X Touch, which makes it an easy swap in a design already laid out for G3X.
Behind them come Garmin's G500/G600 TXi (111 designs), the older Dynon D10 and D100 series (58 and 18), and Dynon's original SkyView (22). Among the other experimental display makers, GRT shows up across its lines (Mini 30, Sport EX 27, Horizon/Sport 10.1 27, HX and SX 16) and Advanced Flight Systems' AF-5000 series in 21. An iPad in a panel mount appears in 323 designs, about as many as any of the leading displays.
Backup instruments
The Garmin G5 is the most-placed instrument in the whole count: 783 designs hold at least one. The GI 275 follows with 407, uAvionix's AV-30 with 167 and Dynon's D30 with 107. With an all-glass panel, the backup is where builders spend least and place most.
Navigators, radios and autopilots
For IFR navigation, Garmin's GPS 175/GNC 355/GNX 375 family leads with 419 designs, followed by the GTN 650 (381) and GTN 750 (265). Avidyne's IFD series and Garmin's older GNS 430 each have 113.
Among autopilot controls, Garmin's GMC 507 mode controller appears in 348 designs. The Dynon SkyView autopilot panel is placed 157 times in its vertical form and 126 times horizontal, and the Trio Pro Pilot is in 71 designs.
What it shows
Builders' panels in 2026 are mostly two big screens and a small backup, with the IFR navigator and radios still in a separate stack in most designs. The next few months will show whether AXIS, which moves the navigator and radio into the display, keeps closing on the stack.
Sources
- Hangar Flying, Panel Designer: count of members' panel designs started January 1 to October 27, 2026, with the equipment each holds (administrator and test accounts left out; no member named). Read October 27, 2026.
- Garmin, Garmin unveils AXIS, a new generation of highly integrated flight displays, July 8, 2026. Read October 27, 2026.