Michael wrote:

My friend sold the Cardinal and bought a Bonanza. He won't let the
same A&P/IA work on it anymore, and has begun to do much of his own
work, having learned that you can't trust a shop. He has had years of
incident-free flying. It's a MAJOR challenge to get his wife into the
airplane.

I've blacklisted mechanics as well. I've not had to blacklist a plane
(although I almost bought a fixed gear Cardinal once, the school I learned
to fly had two RG's and I knew all about their "sudden loss of hydraulic
fluid" problems. Both had been geared up at least once as a result.).

Oddly enough, the first time I took Margy flying, we hit a bird and punched
a hole in the wing from the leading edge back to the spar. She was acutally
MORE confident about flying in small planes after that.