Annual Inspection

I just came out of Annual Inspection. I have to confess Dave and his boys made me feel special. Mikhail, Greg, and Antoine all said they liked working on me – I guess it's my new paint. I do look pretty good, I know. But attracting such attention at my age?

But they did find some things they had to fix. So now I have two new cylinders and a new right-hand exhaust stack. It's better than the one I had when I was new – it has an articulated ball joint which relieves the stress between the headers and the muffler.

Then Chris came and took me for a few test flights. What fun! I know the new paint helps, and the wax Chris put on, and the way John Goris re-rigged my ruddervators at Purple Hill, but now because I am breaking in two new cylinders I have to cruise at 75% power. That's fast! I'm bombing around at 165 and sometimes 170 knots true airspeed. That's fast for an old girl! Chris had better keep a tight rein on me and not let me lose my head!