Maule Driver wrote:
It all sounds like good stuff but it's more of a set of small
upgrades
than an annual.
MD,

The most likely real annual job is the vaccum pump replacement. With
the expected life of dry pump being 500hrs and the fact that they
sometimes die without any advanced warning steered us toward the
2000hrs-life wet pump instead of getting a new dry pump + the Precise
Flight backup system.

You are right that these are more of a set of upgrades than what
needed for an annual but an annual downtime is a good opportunity to
'upgrade' and fix little things which are not exactly airworthiness
issue but can give us a peace of mind such as adding shoulder harnesses
to the backseat, going with a more reliable pump etc..

When we first looking into buying a plane two years ago, we never
thought of having to continue pumping greenbacks to it. It's almost
like an addiction, you keep having the urge to feed the habit ;-) I had
thought of delaying the paint job until next year so that we could
spend on the IFR trips. Last weekend in seeing little flakes of paint
came off while we were cleaning snow and ice of the poor Cardinal, I
swore that I could hear our pet bird crying "I need a new plumage"!
Hai Longworth