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!

I just came out of Annual Inspection. I have to confess Dave and his boys made me feel special. Mikhail, more about 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!

I’m enjoying this! First there’s Dave and Larry taking pictures of me as we do the runup in Lachute, then after we land in Ottawa Andry (pronounced Anch) and Lance give me complements on my looks. Imagine! At my age!

Here’s a closeup of me and Chris. He looks like he’s conducting, doesn’t he?

Here I go into the white and blue.

Start of takeoff.

Airborne!

Gear up!

Into the white and blue!

I love playing in cloud. Today there was a broken layer from 1500 to 3000 feet, so we busted up through it and then did an approach down through it – Ottawa was still officially IFR.

It reminded me of my DC-9 days. The pilots loved short legs like Montreal Ottawa and competed with each other for the shortest OFF-ON time. I think they cheated on the 250 below 10,000 feet. I just know I was going like stink. It still makes me smile!