For today’s lesson, Jeff reports about a major instruments failure shortly after take-off in a well-equipped high-performance single engine aircraft. One more argument in the glass vs. gauges discussions. Vincent.
After getting my Private Pilot’s License in November 2006 I decided that I wanted to continue training to get my instrument rating. I felt that for me, it was the best path to becomming a better, safer pilot. In October 2007 I purchased a 1/3 share in a 1978 Cessna Skylane 182/RG with the idea that I could offset some of the training costs by flying my own plane and it would give me an incentive to fly more often since I wouldn’t have to worry about the cost or availability of rentals.
The plane is a high performance complex airframe and was equiped with standard steam guages, dual VORs and a Garmin 430 – a great setup for Instrument (and eventually Commercial) training. After getting my Instrument rating in March, my co-owners and I decided to upgrade the avionics to make the plane a more modern IFR plaform. We added a Garmin Mode S transponder with traffic, a Garmin 530w for handling precision RNAV approaches, and an Aspen Avionics EFD1000 primary flight display to tie it all together. This also gave us GPS steering through the auto pilot – a real plus for single pilot IFR flying.
Starting in April, I have been going out with a CFII to help with the transition to the glass panel and am trying to build some actual IMC time. Since then I have taken 8 flights with 1.5 hours of actual and feel very comfortable with the new setup.
All was going well until today. We had experienced some installation “glitches” with all the new equipment and had swapped out the Aspen for a new unit earlier in the week. Flight testing by one of the co-owners showed everthing was working well now. Today’s weather for the area showed a relatively high smooth overcast layer about 5,000 AGL. I planned a flight from KASH in New Hampshire to KBID in Rhode Island and figured about an hour each way. I filed a flight plan for 6000 ft so I could get into the clouds and get some additional IMC time.
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Everything checked out during the pre-flight and we were cleared for an IFR departure. My instructor noticed that the heading indicator on the Aspen showed us 10 degrees off runway heading as we sat in position, but chalked it up to me not lining up directly on the centerline and didn’t mention it. On the take-off roll, everything was in the green and I verified that the airspeed cross-checked with the backup steam gauge. As we began our climb-out I raised the gear. Just then, at about 500 ft off the runway, the Aspen began to indicate a roll to the right !
Fortunately, we were still in VMC so I held the plane level visually and verified with the backup attitude indicator. Soon, the Aspen indicated a 90 degrees bank right and the red X INOP flags appeared over the display. We contacted tower to report equipment problems and asked to cancel our flight plan. We were told to make left traffic and enter the downwind leg for our return to the airport. We were immediately cleared #1 to land on runway 14. The INOP flag dissapeared from the upper display, seeming to indicate that everything was working again…
However, once I completed the turn and established a heading of 320 degrees for the downwind, I noticed the DG portion of the Aspen display showed a heading of 360. Meanwhile, the attitude indicator in the upper portion of the unit still showed us in a 15 degree bank to the right. Even though we were currently flying VFR, I was still in an IFR mind set and was carefully scanning my backup airspeed gauge, altitude indicator, attitude indicator, turn coordinator, and Garmin 530. Just then an alert popped up on the 530 display indicating that the GPS signal was lost and to use a backup means of navigation if possible !
That is when it started to feel like everything was falling apart. I looked out my left window at the field and reminded myself how fortunate I was to be this close to home. Once focused, flying the rest of the pattern was automatic and we were on the ground in a few more minutes. Despite all the system failures, I am thankful for many things about this flight. For one, I am glad that so much of my training was with the old steam gauges and I am therfore still very current and comfortable flying without the PFD, moving map, and GPS Steering.
This experience drove home the importance of maintaining that currency and serves as a reminder not to let myself get complacent. It is easy to become too reliant on the high tech equipment, but backups are there for a reason and I need to make sure I don’t neglect that portion of my currency. This may not be the only time when backups are all I have. I need to be ready. I am also glad that the failure happend before I reached my cruising altitude in the clouds. The moment of fear I felt when the Garmin failure occured could have led to a much less favorable outcome if I didn’t have that reassuring view of my home airport out the window.
This experience validated my pursuit of more actual IMC time with an instructor before I start boring holes in the clouds by myself. While my Instrument rating makes it legal for me to do so, I now know first hand how quickly a curve ball can throw you off balance. I didn’t make it to my destination, but today’s flight gave me lessons far more valuable.
Do you also have some experience to share ? Please contact me, I’ll be very happy to publish it here and improve aviation safety by sharing with others.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for sharing this story with us.
Your right too, it is very easy to grow complacent with technology and it is quite the wake-up when you have that realization that electronic / glass instruments can fail just as often as the traditional gauges.
I’m just glad that the failure happened at an ideal time and you were able to make it back without further incident.
Fly safe!
Oof. Great article, and a bit unnerving as I’m about to do an Aspen + Garmin combo in my airplane.
I’d be very interested to know what cause your instruments to fail!
As a follow-up, I retrieved my plane from the shop yesterday. Apparently the Aspen and GPS issues were two separate failures. The repair to the Aspen involved a bad RSM (Remote Sensor Module) that is mounted on the aft fuselage of the aircraft. The mechanic was able to reproduce the problem by heating the unit above 15 deg C, causing the Aspen to lose track of the attitude and heading information. The Garmin 530 seems to have momentarily lost the GPS signal due to interference from the com portion of the Garmin 430 when tuned to the tower frequency of my home airport. This caused the 530 to lock itself down (apparently a safety mechanism). An additional filter has been installed on the 430 while we continue to troubleshoot the transmitter in this unit. For the last two days we have been extensively flight testing the plane in VFR conditions to ensure everything continues to work properly.
@Jeff, thank you for the update. Avionics are never as seamless and integrated as it seems. The Bonanza I flew for my Instrument Rating suffered from some kind of interference between the two GNS430 and the autopilot. At the moment where the NAV receiver of the GPS 1 was switched to an ILS frequency (call that final turn…), the autopilot was flying a descending left turn. Not exactly the good time for an autopilot failure.
This might sound simple, but it took weeks until we established this very diagnosis. It was not reproducible on ground and we had no idea about the causes. The guys of the avionics workshop finally installed one of these “filters” and everything was fine again.
I wonder if a fully integrated system like the G1000 is less prone to such problems… This full integration is also one of the advantages I see in the G1000 when compared to other glass cockpit systems.
Thanks, Jeff, for the follow-up info. I’m installing an Aspen in my SNJ-6 shortly. I’ll be sure that it sees plenty of nice, sunny VFR time before it ever encounters night or IMC.
Hi’ I love the Aspen, however in just over 2 years I have been thru 4 units, One problem after another, don’t know why you can’t find this sort of info on line. any questions please call. Also, the companyHAS BEEN GREAT AT REPLACING AND IDENTIFING THE PROBLEMS, ALL THEIRS.
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