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rates of ATC pilot deviation reports in the country, and he thought this might have something to do with why we were questioned three times by the ground controller about our SID clearance...”getting it on the tape.”Finally, on a more positive note, he says the FAA is definitely in the business of weeding out “bad” pilots, but, at the same time, they know only a very small percentage of pilots fit that description, and, in addition, they generally do not hold pilots in violation for ATC deviations that are equipment- based. His concluding advice was that I should describe what happened in a letter, send it in as a reply, then see what happens.I draft a reply which is almost identical to the ASRS report I had already submitted to NASA. To cover my bets on the timeline, I send it off to the FSDO inspector in Las Vegas by e-mail, fax and USPO. A week of silence follows, and then one morning my cell phone rings with none other than the Aviation Safety Inspector from Las Vegas on the line.Unlike the tone of the letter bearing his signature, his attitude is quite different, being both friendly and courteous. We chat a bit about our flying backgrounds before getting down to the business at hand. He then says he has a long computer form to fill out, and he would appreciate my help with that. The form has some questions one would expect, such as time of day and weather conditions, but most are completely irrelevant to our operation, such as those about rest periods and multiple time zone flights. When the long data-entry process is finally over, he says, given that there appeared to be an avionics discrepancy, he would assume the airplane was sent to the shop and a repair entry made in the logbook. If so, and if I could send him a copy of that entry within the next five days, he should be able to just close the file.I contact the maintenance shop and find that after our return both the avionics and the faulty air conditioning were indeed worked on. I call the mechanic and he says they never found out exactly what was went wrong with the avionics, but he understood the airplane had been heat soaked and that can often cause software and wiring connection problems that are difficult to reproduce. He says they removed the boxes, reprogrammed the software, tightened all connections, re-tested the systems and now they all operate normally. The AC system was also charged with Freon, and(I was very glad to hear), all of this had been properly entered into the aircraft’s logbook.I promptly obtain copies of the log and send these via e-mail to the Las Vegas-based FAA Aviation Safety Inspector. A week later, I get a return e-mail saying, “I closed out the investigation with no action, since you provided documentation showing the avionics discrepancy involved in the pilot deviati•on was repaired”.Who says the FAA is always unreasonable, or that all heat-soaked avionics failure stories necessarily have bad endings? T&TKevin Ware is an ATP who also holds CFI, MEII and helicopter ratings, and is typed in several business jets. He has been flying for a living on and off since he was 20, and currently works as a contract pilot for sever- al corporations in the Seattle area. When not working as a pilot, he is employed part-time as an emergency and urgent care physician for a large clinic in the Seattle area.Nashua Flight Simulator Sixth Page 4/C AdDouble M Aviation Sixth Page 4/C AdDECEMBER 2015TWIN & TURBINE • 25