Just a quick anecdotal story regarding TSO vs. non-TSO equipment:

 

About 7 years ago I was flying my Lancair 360 out of Aspen during marginal weather.  It was a challenging departure that has you flying in a valley on instruments.  Not a great time for instrument failure.

 

About 2 minutes into the departure, solid IFR, I started getting severe p-static.  So severe my headset was shocking me badly enough that I had to remove it.  Here is the important part…

 

Every non-TSO piece of electrical equipment in the plane failed.  Not one TSO piece of equipment failed.  Here is list of what failed:

 

-          AOA.  Started bouncing up and down and calling out “error …”

-          VM Engine instruments

-          Rocky Mountain MicroEncoder.  Shut off.

-          Tablet PC (used for charts): shut off (fortunately I had back-up)

-          CO detector.  Permanently damaged

 

Here is what did not fail:

 

-          Mechanical/steam gauges

-          Sandel EFIS

-          Garmin 430’s (2)

-          Garmin audio panel

-          Garmin transponder

-          S-TEC autopilot

 

It seems likely I wouldn’t be writing this email today if I had all electronic non-TSO equipment that day…

 

Matt