Fire in the Cockpit

My Bonanza finally came out of annual after 3 weeks, but not intact.  While it was in the hangar, one of the mechanics was working on some electrical issue, and turned on the avionics - at which point my Garmin 430W started to smoke and the circuit breaker popped.

Fortunately, this happened on the ground, not in the air where it would have been much more serious.  The shop took out the 430W, and sent it to the Garmin dealer at TKI, who sent it to Garmin for repair.  After 10 days or so, I got a nice surprise - Garmin repaired it for free, probably since they had just upgraded it from 430 to 430W last summer, although if they hadn't touched the power supply it might have been in a gray area from a warranty standpoint.  I will only have to pay for shipping.

So on Monday, hopefully I will get my Bonanza back intact, after a month of being down for annual.  Not quite the experience I was hoping for!