If you all can recall from the last issue, I had just gotten home with my new airplane and the only thing left to do was the import inspection. This is the part of the process that I had decided to leave up to someone else. The only thing for me to do was pay the invoice at the end and fly away. As it turned out, I wish that I had gotten more involved with this process. It may have sped things up a bit… or maybe not.

When we left the airplane with Ian Baker at Artisan Aviation, we went through all the possible snags that I could think of. First was the windshield. It has the one-piece unit installed and has the STC with paperwork. The only issue was a small crack. The STC plainly states that this is not allowed, and the windshield should be replaced. I knew that going in, and actually, the seller gave me a new windshield with the plane. I told Ian it was his decision and to change it if he needed to; otherwise, I could do it later. Another snag was the Jasco alternator installed on the engine without any paperwork to support it. There was just an entry in the logs stating that it was on the engine when it was installed. Once again, I told Ian not to let this become a snag and to change it with a new lightweight alternator if it was going to be a problem. By giving him these options, I thought that it might speed up the process a bit.

Ian’s shop is very busy, and unfortunately, he couldn’t get started on it for a couple of weeks. This would give me time to get the registration all sorted out so that when he called to say it was ready, I wouldn’t be holding him up. After a few weeks, Ian called me to tell me that they had completed the inspection and there were a few things that he needed to show me. This can’t be good; I thought to myself. When I got out there, I could hardly recognize the airplane. Anything that could be unbolted or taken off was. With the exception of the wings, I think that everything else was on the shelf. I had no idea that the inspection was going to be this thorough. There definitely won’t be any question as to what I have after this is done.

Anyway, Ian had a step ladder ready at the wing tip and grabbed a flashlight and motioned me to get up there. Inside the wing at the tip, there was a repair on the spar that looked like a repair on top of a repair. Neither looked very good. We moved to the other wing. Same repair but only once this time. This one looked a little better. From there, we moved to the wing root where one of the flap cables was frayed about halfway through and the linkages were totally worn out. These were the major snags. The minor ones included bolts that weren’t quite secure, washers missing, leaks in the engine and exhaust, and the list went on. It seemed to me to be quite a big list, but Ian assured me that he had seen much worse. We talked about the required repairs at length and also about some of the paperwork that was missing. There were a lot of new parts in the right wing, but there was no documentation to support it. This was definitely a problem. Ian told me that he needed some documentation for the new parts in the wing and that he wasn’t sure if he needed to repair both wing tips or just the one. He wanted to think it over.

I left his shop with a sinking feeling. He gave me guesses on how many hours each of the repairs would require, and adding it all up, plus parts gave me reason to drive straight to the local liquor store for a jug of rum. This, of course, wasn’t planned for. I had already gone over my budget by quite a bit just to get this airplane that I thought, with the recent rebuild, it would be good to go. In discussions with Gary, he had thought that if there were no serious snags, the import inspection would be between $3,000 and $5,000. Now I was looking at 3 to 4 times that amount, and all the extra repairs would mean that I wouldn’t be flying any time soon.

When I got home, I sent the seller an e-mail detailing the problems that I was having in regard to the missing paperwork for all the new parts in the wing. I didn’t mention anything about the spar repairs in the wings yet, as those were still undecided on for the most part. E-mails went back and forth from his A&P, and the missing documentation was found and sent out. There were 337 forms and log entries that were found in a file that should have been in the logs, but for some reason never made it. One problem solved.

After a week or so, the documentation arrived in the mail. I drove it out to Springbank. Ian hadn’t decided on any of the repairs yet and unfortunately, nothing had been done in the meantime. Other jobs had taken priority as can happen in a busy shop.

At this point, it had been about a month since I had dropped the plane off. So far, I knew everything that was wrong, but none of the work had been done… a bit discouraging. I waited another two weeks before calling again to check the progress. At this point, most of the work had been completed to the engine in regard to replacing seals and gaskets. This was pretty much all the minor stuff. Ian had decided that he could live with the work done in the left wing, but the right wing would need to be repaired. He was searching out the parts that he needed and would wait to pull the wing off until he had everything that was required to do the repair. Another 2 weeks went by, and this time I drove out to check on the progress. At this point, it had been 8 weeks. The interior was now re-installed, but everything else looked the same. Ian had received the parts for the spar repair, but there was another wing in his repair jig. He was hoping to get that one out within a couple of weeks, and then mine would go in. Of course, as it usually goes, that repair went a week longer than expected, but mine did go in directly afterward, and at the 12-week point, the wing was repaired and back on the airplane.

All the while that this was going on, Ian was having trouble locating a flap cable and replacement parts for the linkages. Ian called one day to let me know that he had found all that he needed for the flap repairs, but there was one other item that had popped up. When he finally got enough time to dig deep into the logs, he found that there was no real information on the mags. He sent them off to Stauffer’s to get checked to see if they needed a rebuild. More unpleasant news, the mags were shot. Not even worth rebuilding. Another unexpected expense, as a new set of mags was required. The list of new parts was getting longer and longer. In my mind, the bill was starting to get outrageous, but at this point, there was nothing that I could do. Ian needed to follow procedures on his end to ensure that this airplane conformed to airworthiness standards.

Now we were at the 14-week point. The only things left were to install the new mags and harness, sand and paint over the “N” numbers, and complete the paperwork for the Certificate of Airworthiness. Ian assured me that it would be done for the following Friday, and I could come and pick it up.

The following Friday came, and I left work early to pick up the 170. Armed with my checkbook, I arrived at Ian’s about 3 pm. To my surprise, the airplane was ready, but the bill wasn’t. Ian said to just take the airplane, and he would send the bill in the mail. Now I wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. We pushed the airplane out of the hangar, and we went through all the repairs and work that was done. The airplane had been there for 15 weeks, and it looked the same as when it went in. Except for the new registration, it looked as though nothing had changed… a real credit to the quality of work that was completed. I shook Ian’s hand and thanked him for all his efforts. It’s funny to look back and think about the parts of the airplane that I thought would be snags, namely the windshield and the alternator. Neither of those turned out to be issues.

Now came the tough part for me. Although the trip home was considered a checkout, I wasn’t really confident in my abilities with the 170. All we really did was point it in the direction of home and sit there. So, when it came time to climb in, I was pretty nervous. I told Ian not to wait around because this was probably going to take a bit. I sat there going through everything and trying to get comfortable. Here I was in an unfamiliar airplane at an unfamiliar airport, trying extremely hard not to screw things up. It took about 20 minutes before I was ready to start up and get going. I wanted to make sure that I was as comfortable as I could be. I had gone through all my procedures and run through the checklist a few times to be sure. I started up and taxied onto Delta and around to where the tower had a visual on me. From here, it was easy. The controller directed me around to the active where I could do my run-up, and he transferred me to the inner controller.

From here, I got clearance for the active and rolled out onto the runway. As I rolled the power on, I was very excited (in a nervous sort of way). I was focused on the runway throughout the roll, not concentrating on anything but the end of the runway. When she started to get light, I glanced down to check the airspeed, and it was at zero. Great, now what!!! Before I had a chance to decide what steps to take, I was airborne and climbing out. It sure doesn’t take long to get off the ground with only one person. It was too late to abort the takeoff by this time, so I used the GPS for my airspeed information. Thank goodness for that; it would have been pretty tough to fly by the seat of my pants in an airplane that I wasn’t very accustomed to. As I started to settle down from the excitement of that ordeal, I realized that the VSI and the altimeter weren’t working either… pitot/static problem. Afterwards, I found out that the static vent from the altimeter was disconnected when I brought it in, so they just reconnected it. As it turned out, the static port was plugged with a spider’s nest and wouldn’t allow any air to get through. It was an easy problem to solve, but I wish that it wasn’t on my first solo flight in it.

The ride home to Carstairs was uneventful from there on. The controller released me, and I switched to 123.2 in time to hear Jorn backtracking at Olds/Didsbury. What great timing. We met up in the air over Carstairs and played around a bit. One observer on the ground had stated that we looked like a couple of kids with a new set of toys. Exactly!

The next few hours have been spent trying to get used to how she flies and trying to get my landings down pat. I still don’t feel as comfortable in it as I did in the Chief, but I know that it will come with time.

I learned a great deal during this whole ordeal. If I could do it again, I would probably do a few things differently, but I wouldn’t change the outcome. I still ended up getting the airplane that I wanted, and that’s the most important thing. I did spend more than I had budgeted for. The import inspection ended up being about 5 thousand less than I was expecting, but still more than I had hoped for. I now have an airplane that my whole family can enjoy with me, and I plan to keep it for a good long time to come. I hope that my ramblings didn’t bore any of you too much, but I did enjoy sharing my experience. I’m looking forward to great flights and lots of storytelling.