We have not been idle though; last year our annual maintenance had to be carried out in June which was not the best of times, in the middle of a busy summer, so we decided to sacrifice 6 months of time and bring the Annual forward to this winter. That worked well as I had to have my long-awaited hip operation, which meant that I would be out of action for 3 months anyway.
The planned change of our rudder and tailwheel took a little longer than was forecast, but that was not too much of a problem, but when the maintenance organisation started to tackle a little bit of corrosion by the door stop, the spar was discovered to have a dint in it. A replacement was in stock, so we thought “great!” – not to be the case though. The UK agent dealt with the order and started chasing it when the order did not appear. Five weeks later it was finally dispatched with many excuses being put forward for the delay. I think the UK agent put it very well when he compared American Champion to the original unmodernised Morgan company in this country.
Then to delay the arrival even more UPS delayed the package dispatch by around 5 days and then it got stuck in customs. Despite many hours of chasing, I never did get any sense from UPS, but it eventually arrived and happily we now have a very good aircraft back in the skies.
Now looking forward to a summer of aerobatic cloud dancing and professional training on the Advanced UPRT courses.