Just a datapoint - in 1200 hours in two Cirruses, including 120 hours of IMC, I’ve had 2 pstatic events. One was before the SB improving grounding of the temperature probe, and even then I only lost my engine monitoring, with a bit of radio noise. The second time I had some radio noise, but never lost comms and had no failures. I’ve never had any problems with my PFD (700 hours) though it was changed prophylacticly at an annual under warranty. I had my Arnav MFD fail once on my previous plane, and I’ve had my engine monitoring screen lock once on my Avidyne MFD.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy a new 182, it is a fine airplane. But if you are choosing it because of these perceptions, that’s a very skewed view.
One could get an equally skewed view by reading this Emergency AD the FAA issued in March of this year for new Cessna production, which stated in part:
The FAA was notified that inadequate or incorrect flight controls rigging may exist on recently produced Cessna Models 172R, 172S, 182T, and T182T airplanes. The following issues were identified through Cessna’s inspection of airplanes still at their production facility:
Two airplanes with ailerons not engaging the upper stops and one with a flap push/pull rod missing the nut on the bolt.
Elevator cables chafing fuel lines near the fuel selector, which caused damage to the fuel lines.
Elevator trim cables routed outside the cotter pins in the horizontal stabilizer.
Elevator trim cables crossed twice (trim functioned correctly in flight).
Control cables rubbing structures such as bulkheads and center consoles.
Aileron bell crank adjustment screw interference with stringer.
Barrels on control cables not safety pinned or incorrectly pinned.
Control cables routed outside of pulleys.
A bent flap bell crank.
After careful review of all available information related to the subject presented above, FAA determined that:
Operation of the affected Models 172R, 172S, 182T, and T182T airplanes should be prohibited until all the flight control systems are inspected and any discrepancies corrected; and
AD action should be taken to prevent loss of airplane control due to incorrect or inadequate rigging of critical flight systems.
Consequently, we issued emergency AD 2005-05-53 on March 4, 2005, to require a one-time detailed inspection of the flight control system, correction of installations that do not conform to type design, and repair of any damage.
Each airplane is only as good as it was built. An old design is no guaranty that todays production quality is solid.