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Figured I'd post an update on my PTRIM NML FAIL saga of doom. After 7 trips to the shop (twice to Embraer, and 5 times to Aero Star) I no longer get this CAS message on descent/approach! And it's nice to have a plane that works reliably again.

During this saga we replaced both actuators (multiple times), both TACs (multiple times), both GIAs, the cockpit switch panel, the interconnect, and probably more that I don't even know about. Ultimately the final fix seems to have been taking apart and rebuilding or cleaning every wiring connector related to the system.

Of course, this situation happened just 2 months after I cancelled EEC Enhanced. While this did create a $25k total labor bill for this saga, it did mean that I got the opportunity to have Chris Grinnell spearhead the efforts to get this fixed once I gave up on Embraer.

Huge thanks to Chris who ultimately waived over $16k in labor charges and personally stayed late multiple days to work on this issue. Also thanks to Tom Norton who helped with some of the early troubleshooting as well as the many pilots (Sean Thomas, Bill Roe, Reggie Robertson) who went to DAL to fly test flights after I got tired of going to DAL only to be disappointed.

All told, I think this issue cost me north of $60k to resolve. I actually spent more on pilot day rates, travel expenses, fuel, and hourly program expenses for the test flights than I did on the labor.

This was probably the most frustrating episode I've dealt with in airplane ownership to date, but there is no way I'm gonna let the Textron salesman convince me to buy a CJ. . Despite the challenges, I still love the Phenom.