Bonanza 35
Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 8; Flight Crew Total 1000; Flight Crew Type 50
Confusion; Troubleshooting; Human-Machine Interface
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Human Factors; Aircraft
I was flying our Beechcraft V35. The departure was into dusk with squalls so I planned to depart VFR and collect my IMC clearance rapidly and then climb into a darkening sky. At about 2000 feet I contacted ATC and was turned on course direct and at that point noted a GPS error on the panel. The aircraft had been updated with an Aspen 1500; a Garmin GTN 650 with a new Garmin GTX 327 transponder. In addition the GTN has the Flightstream 210 connection. So all-in-all a comprehensive panel for IFR navigation. In addition I had an iPad mini on the yoke with Foreflight running (this was connected to the panel via the Flightstream and GTX) and an Aera portable with XM weather in easy view). The GPS signal briefly went away and I continued on autopilot heading mode and then within 30 seconds everything was normal again. At this point I was still VMC but climbing for 5000 with worse weather ahead. I considered remaining VFR or aborting my flight but the brief GPS loss seemed an illusion. ATC said no one else has reported an outage so I wondered if I had encountered a trucker with a GPS jammer on a highway or similar. So I continued - into the rain; clouds and turbulence climbing for 8000.Then all hell broke loose; GPS signal failure; ADSB failure; multiple cascading messages on the GTN. With my trusty iPad on the yoke as backup; I did not panic figuring I could continue with heading mode and navigate with ATC heading and fly the plane. But of course my iPad was receiving erroneous inputs from the panel and rapidly showed me at a 90 degree course error. The attitude information on the iPad was similarly crazy. Now the problem was I had no error message on the iPad and had not made the connection that it was also receiving erroneous GPS data from the panel. My confidence in the heading indicator was rocked and I was now depending on the backup instruments - compass and turn coordinator. We all train for it; but to fly this in turbulence with rain and dark while troubleshooting a glass panel with multiple error messages and conflicting information; I can tell anyone; is no fun.With the ADSB error messages did the GTX 327 get the flu or a cable problem? Was there a cross talk problem with three possible GPS inputs in conflict? I know in the future if this happens the first call is to disconnect the iPad from the panel and doing that helped immensely. I have not heard anyone discuss this before.
BE35 pilot reported experiencing combined failures of GPS; ADS-B; heading; and tablet software possibly due to the fact that all of the systems were interconnected.