We are on our fourth or fifth RSM, depending on whether we count the replacement RSM that arrived to our avionics shop from Aspen dead on arrival. Aspen's front line people are very helpful but this increasingly appears to be a design or manufacturing defect and the company won't accept responsibility for it. There have been numerous posts on the internet over the last decade concerning RSM failures. Aspen's responses usually include a narrative that doesn't explain the failure but provides a menu of possible causes: RSM placement, it's too hot, it's too cold, the plane was left outside, the plane was left in the hanger, the plane was flown, etc. Of course, this is an exaggeration but that's the gist. Every time the RSM fails, our plane is AOG for about a month and we lose the flight instruction/rental revenue (and profit) that we would have earned in that period. Our avionics shop rate is now at $150/hr. On this most recent failure, Aspen tried to blame the cabling, reasoning that because the RSM unit failed within months of the last RSM replacement (at the same avionics shop), the RSM itself might not be the problem despite the annunciation "RSM failure."
It didn't make any sense to us because if the replacement unit tests good after installation, a defective cable shouldn't permit that result. The technicians tested the cable and could not detect any issue with it. The shop installed the new RSM unit and it's working fine with the original cable. We flew it away yesterday without experiencing any malfunction.
If a part fails due to age or just wears out and I have to replace it, that's an incident of aircraft ownership. If the same new part repeatedly fails, that's something else. Now I've got a series of logbook entries showing that the Aspen 1000 set up in my plane might a lemon. That inevitably impacts the resale value of my airplane. If there are other Aspen owners experiencing the same repeated RSM failure, I encourage you to post here and speak up. Only if the company hears the united, public voice of affected owners will executive management ever consider the real risks of ignoring this problem.
