Cessna 310 pilot reported multiple inflight failures of the Aspen Primary Flight Display (PFD).

Date: 2023-08 · Aircraft: Cessna 310/T310C · Phase: cruise

Anomalies: aircraft-equipment-problem-critical

Synopsis

Cessna 310 pilot reported multiple inflight failures of the Aspen Primary Flight Display (PFD).

Narrative

At the time I was returning from ZZZ to ZZZ1 and the weather was IFR with rain showers and isolated thunderstorms. The flight was mostly uneventful to our first fuel stop in ZZZ2 where we stopped for fuel and lunch. It was a steady rain but not a significant downpour with VFR conditions enabling a VFR to IFR pickup airborne. Pre-flight; taxi; run-up; takeoff; and climb-out were uneventful with no errors in instrumentation. Approximately 5 - 10 minutes after cruise was established the Aspen PFD (Primary Flight Display) began to drift down and to the left with erroneous headings. I disengaged the autopilot and hand flew while resetting the PFD. The PFD reset and worked for a few minutes and began to drift down and lift with erratic movement on the headings. I did a hard reset of all the avionics and this time the Aspen produced red X's which meant the unit completely failed. I was in between layers with a solid layer developing below me. Being familiar with the area; I knew the terrain was mountainous and did not want to get low below the layer. However; I was concerned the VFR layer would be short lived and wanted to land as soon as possible. I had full fuel so I knew I could fly for several hours to areas of VFR; it was the enroute that was concerning. With vectors from ZZZ [Center]; I was able to spot ZZZ3 Airport through a hole in the clouds. I am thoroughly convinced that something of a divine intervention happened as the hole materialized right above the airport. I was able to aggressively maneuver down through the hole and maintain VFR to landing. Once on the ground; the attitude indicator was nearly 60 - 70 degrees nose down and left and the magnetic heading was spinning freely.This would be the 2nd time the unit failed on me in flight. The first was a few years prior in VFR conditions and I had it fixed; or so I thought. After the unplanned precautionary landing at ZZZ3; I contacted a nearby avionics shop and had them diagnose the Aspen; to which they found the Remote Sensing Module (RSM) had failed. After the events; I told them to get it out of my airplane as I don't trust it anymore. They replaced it with the Aspen ProMax 1000 PFD which was supposed to fix the issue. After flight testing; the unit functioned until earlier this year while on an flight from ZZZ4 to ZZZ5. The unit tumbled and red X'd as previous failures but I was in VFR conditions and was able to continue without issue. I sent it to get fixed again and they replaced the RSM. I asked the mechanic if this was common or if it was just my aircraft? He said that the RSM has a 3 in 4 failure rate and is just poor quality. I was surprised that this is not a federal issue that is under investigation.Yesterday; I was going to fly around the pattern just as a monthly maintenance flight and the RSM unit failed again. I can no longer trust my primary instrument and have 3 backups now. One panel mounted; a Garmin portable ADAHRS (Air Data/Attitude/Heading Reference System)/GPS; and my phone with flight software. I hope this issue gets the attention it should deserve as I have no desire to become a statistic due to poor quality control. A simple search will bring up a multitude of other RSM-related failures.

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.